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.

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

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.

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

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

Contentment is the only real wealth.

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.