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

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.

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

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

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.

Good wishes alone will not ensure peace.

My home is where I work, and I work everywhere.

For my part, I wish all guns with their belongings and everything could be sent to hell, which is the proper place for their exhibition and use.

I would not leave anything to a man of action as he would be tempted to give up work; on the other hand, I would like to help dreamers as they find it difficult to get on in life.

I am not aware that I have deserved any notoriey, and I have no taste for its buzz.

As far as beauty is concerned, in order to be confident we must accept that the way we look and feel is our own responsibility.

We work on ourselves in order to help others, but also we help others in order to work on ourselves.

What we seek to accomplish is cool, But what are we willing to sacrifice in order to make it happen!

All places where women are excluded tend downward to barbarism; but the moment she is introduced, there come in with her courtesy, cleanliness, sobriety, and order.

It’s not where you’re trying to go in life that is the problem, it’s what are you willing to leave behind in order to get there.

How does a man decide in what order to abandon his life?

One of the great conditions of anger and hatred is, that you must tell and believe lies against the hated object, in order, as we said, to be consistent.

This is one of man’s oldest riddles. How can the independence of human volition be harmonized with the fact that we are integral parts of a universe which is subject to the rigid order of nature’s laws?