Hope is nature's veil for hiding truth's nakedness.

Perhaps my dynamite plants will put an end to war sooner than your [pacifist] congresses. On the day two army corps can annihilate each other in one second all civilized nations will recoil from war in horror.

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.

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

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.

I have not the slightest pretension to call my verses poetry; I write now and then for no other purpose than to relieve depression or to improve my English.

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