“For me writing biographies is impossible, unless they are brief and concise, and these are, I feel, the most eloquent.”

A recluse without books and ink is already in life a dead man.

The savants will write excellent volumes. There will be laureates. But wars will continue just the same until the forces of the circumstances render them impossible.

If I have a thousand ideas and only one turns out to be good, I am satisfied.

Contentment is the only real wealth.

I am a misanthrope yet utterly benevolent.

My dynamite will sooner lead to peace than a thousand world conventions. As soon as men will find that in one instant, whole armies can be utterly destroyed, they surely will abide by golden peace.

The only true solution would be a convention under which all the governments would bind themselves to defend collectively any country that was attacked.

Lying is the greatest of all sins.

Nature is man’s teacher. She unfolds her treasures to his search, unseals his eye, illumes his mind, and purifies his heart; an influence breathes from all the sights and sounds of her existence.

One can state, without exaggeration, that the observation of and the search for similarities and differences are the basis of all human knowledge.

It is not sufficient to be worthy of respect in order to be respected.

I am a misanthrope and yet utterly benevolent, have more than one screw loose yet am a super-idealist who digests philosophy more efficiently than food.

It is my express wish that in awarding the [Nobel Prizes] no consideration be given to the nationality of the candidates, but that the most worthy shall receive the prize, whether he be Scandinavian or not.

A heart can no more be forced to love than a stomach can be forced to digest food by persuasion.

The truthful man is usually a liar.

Lawyers have to make a living, and can only do so by inducing people to believe that a straight line is crooked.

The briefest moment shared with you-the longest on my mind.

Don’t let it be forgot, that once there was a spot, for one brief shining moment, that was known as Camelot.

Having lost the last war, they are currently enjoying a “Wirtschaftswunder,” which can be briefly translated as “The best way to own a Mercedes is to build one.”

Reading is untidy, discursive and perpetually inviting. Briefing closes down a subject, reading opens it up.

[B]riefing is not reading. In fact it is the antithesis of reading. Briefing is terse, factual and to the point.

Photography is a brief complicity between foresight and luck.

However brief and close to the earth his words sound, they echo throughout infinite eternity and permeate the faith of his followers with their eternal content.

I looked at Brief Encounter very closely, to be honest.