Justice is to be found only in the imagination.

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

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.

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 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.

Second to agriculture, humbug is the biggest industry of our age.

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