Alfred Nobel's Quotes & Sayings

It is my express wish that in awarding the 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. — Alfred Nobel

Alfred Nobel's discoveries are characteristic; powerful explosives can help men perform admirable tasks. They are also a means to terrible destruction in the hands of the great criminals who lead peoples to war. — Pierre Curie

I can only point out a curious fact. Year after year the Nobel Awards bring a moment of happiness not only to the recipients, not only to colleagues and friends of the recipients, but even to strangers. — Alfred Day Hershey

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

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

In dedicating his estate to the honoring of endeavors that benefit mankind, Alfred Nobel expressed a lifelong concern that is even more timely in 1972 than it was in his lifetime. — Stanford Moore

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

And this is the ultimate lesson that our knowledge of the mode of transmission of typhus has taught us: Man carries on his skin a parasite, the louse. Civilization rids him of it. Should man regress, should he allow himself to resemble a primitive beast, the louse begins to multiply again and treats man as he deserves, as a brute beast. This conclusion would have endeared itself to the warm heart of Alfred Nobel. My contribution to it makes me feel less unworthy of the honour which you have conferred upon me in his name. — Charles Nicolle

It is a wonderful and unexpected honor to receive the Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel. Receiving this prize with Joseph Stiglitz and George Akerlof, whose work I have learned from and admired, makes it even more gratifying. — Michael Spence

I share Alfred Nobel's conviction that war is the greatest of all human disasters. Infectious disease runs a good second. — Peter C. Doherty

Alfred Nobel really understood very well the necessary supra-natural character of the human enterprise. — Charles H. Townes

Thoughts
thoughts. Are they not mine?
I think, I write, I type.
Thoughts. Are they wise?
Let truth be told in words, compiled together, create a page, a book.
Thoughts. Are they master piece?
Is it a prize winner? ... An Alfred Nobel?
Thoughts. Are they not mine?
Gift of God?
they are not mine. — Edna Stewart

When I was young my Father used to tell me that the two most worthwhile pursuits in life were the pursuit of truth and of beauty and I believe that Alfred Nobel must have felt much the same when he gave these prizes for literature and the sciences. — Frederick Sanger

Kant's style is so heavy that after his pure reason, the reader longs for unreasonableness. — Alfred Nobel

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. — Alfred Nobel

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. — Alfred Nobel

My co-winners, Peter Diamond and Christopher Pissarides, and I wish to thank the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and the Nobel Foundation for this very great honor. We each feel privileged and humbled to be named the winners of the 2010 Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel. — Dale T. Mortensen

Good wishes alone will not ensure peace. — Alfred Nobel

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. — Alfred Nobel

Alfred Nobel stipulated that no distinction of race or colour will determine who received of his generosity. — Abdus Salam

The fact that Science walks forward on two feet, namely theory and experiment, is nowhere better illustrated than in the two fields for slight contributions to which you have done me the great honour of awarding the the Nobel Prize in Physics for the year 1923. Sometimes it is one foot that is put forward first, sometimes the other, but continuous progress is only made by the use of both - by theorizing and then testing, or by finding new relations in the process of experimenting and then bringing the theoretical foot up and pushing it on beyond, and so on in unending alterations. — Robert Andrews Millikan

Justice is to be found only in imagination. — Alfred Nobel

Dynamite, which was invented in 1867 by Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, was a godsend for anarchists and other militants, since it was a powerful weapon that was easy to conceal. Nobel was so dismayed to see his invention used for violent purposes - he had intended it to be used for peaceful endeavors such as construction - that he left millions of dollars in his will to establish the annual Nobel Prizes, including the Nobel Peace Prize. — Jeffrey D. Simon

It can even be thought that radium could become very dangerous in criminal hands, and here the question can be raised whether mankind benefits from knowing the secrets of Nature, whether it is ready to profit from it or whether this knowledge will not be harmful for it. The example of the discoveries of Nobel is characteristic, as powerful explosives have enabled man to do wonderful work. They are also a terrible means of destruction in the hands of great criminals who lead the peoples towards war. I am one of those who believe with Nobel that mankind will derive more good than harm from the new discoveries. — Pierre Curie

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. — Alfred Nobel

The truthful man is usually a liar. — Alfred Nobel

Martin Buber suggested that evil prevailed because of the inability of man to imagine the real. Yet human beings do have that capacity. Lord Byron, a poet favored by Alfred Nobel, captured the stark essence of a post-nuclear world in his poem Darkness: — Bernard Lown

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

Alfred Nobel was much concerned, as are we all, with the tangible benefits we hope for and expect from physiological and medical research, and the Faculty of the Caroline Institute has ever been alert to recognize practical benefits. — Haldan Keffer Hartline

Hope is nature's veil for hiding truth's nakedness. — Alfred Nobel

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. — Alfred Nobel

I can forgive Alfred Nobel for having invented dynamite, but only a fiend in human form could have invented the Nobel Prize. — George Bernard Shaw

Home is where I work, and I work everywhere. — Alfred Nobel

As murderous industrial magnates go, Alfred Nobel is right up there with Ray Kroc, franchiser of McDonald's. — P. J. O'Rourke

Written in 1895, Alfred Nobel's will endowed prizes for scientific research in chemistry, physics, and medicine. At that time, these fields were narrowly defined, and researchers were often classically trained in only one discipline. In the late 19th century, knowledge of science was not a requisite for success in other walks of life. — Peter Agre

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. — Alfred Nobel

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

The capital ... shall form a fund, the interest of which shall be distributed annually as prizes to those persons who shall have rendered humanity the best services during the past year ... One-fifth to the person having made the most important discovery or invention in the science of physics, one-fifth to the person who has made the most eminent discovery or improvement in chemistry, one-fifth to the one having made the most important discovery with regard to physiology or medicine, one-fifth to the person who has produced the most distinguished idealistic work of literature, and one-fifth to the person who has worked the most or best for advancing the fraternization of all nations and for abolishing or diminishing the standing armies as well as for the forming or propagation of committees of peace. — Alfred Nobel

I regard large inherited wealth as a misfortune, which merely serves to dull men's faculties. A man who possesses great wealth should, therefore, allow only a small portion to descend to his relatives. Even if he has children, I consider it a mistake to hand over to them considerable sums of money beyond what is necessary for their education. To do so merely encourages laziness and impedes the healthy development of the individual's capacity to make an independent position for himself. — Alfred Nobel

Worry is the stomach's worst poison. — Alfred Nobel

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

On the day when two army corps may mutually annihilate each other in a second, probably all civilized nations will recoil with horror and disband their troops. — Alfred Nobel

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. — Alfred Nobel

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

The Nobel Peace Prize has always been a joke - albeit a grim one. Alfred Bernhard Nobel famously invented dynamite and felt sorry about it. — P. J. O'Rourke

DYNAM comes from the Greek dynamis, meaning "power." A dyne is a unit used in measuring force; an instrument that measures force is called a dynamometer. And when Alfred Nobel invented a powerful explosive in 1867, he named it dynamite. — Merriam-Webster

I am a misanthrope yet utterly benevolent. — Alfred Nobel

I feel we must all exert ourselves to the utmost to see that the ideals and hopes held by Alfred Nobel, whom we commemorate today, do not fail from lack of purpose on the part of scientists. — Howard Florey

I am a misanthrope, but exceedingly benevolent; I am very cranky, and am a super-idealist ... I can digest philosophy better than food. — Alfred Nobel

Lying is the greatest of all sins. — Alfred Nobel

The Nobel prizes memorialize Alfred Nobel's faith in the contribution that human thought, directed to science and art, can make to human welfare. — Herbert A. Simon

The day when two army corps can annihilate each other in one second, all civilized nations, it is to be hoped, will recoil from war and discharge their troops. — Alfred Nobel

The first time I saw nitroglycerine was in the beginning of the Crimean War. Professor Zinin in St. Petersburg exhibited some to my father and me, and struck some on an anvil to show that only the part touched by the hammer exploded without spreading. — Alfred Nobel

There is a story about Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite. One day his older brother died, and a newspaper got the story wrong and printed Alfred's obituary instead. Alfred opened the paper that morning and had the unusual experience of reading his obituary while he was still alive. "Dr. Alfred Nobel, who became rich by finding ways to kill more people faster than ever before, died yesterday," the obituary began. Alfred threw down the paper. That's not how I want to be remembered, he said. That's not what's important to me, he said, and right then and there he decided to throw his entire fortune into rewarding people for bettering this world and bringing it closer to peace. — Alan A. Lew

To his sister-in-law: What a contrast between us! You live a warm and glowing life, surrounded by loved ones whom you care for and who care for you; you are anchored in contentment. I drift about without rudder or compass, a wreck on the sea of life; I have no memories to cheer me, no pleasant illusions of the future to comfort me, or about me to satisfy my vanity. I have no family to furnish the only kind of survival that concerns us, no friends for the wholesome development of my affections, or enemies for my malice. — Alfred Nobel

I am one of those who think, like Nobel, that humanity will draw more good than evil from new discoveries. — Marie Curie

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

Alfred Nobel believed that social changes are brought about slowly, and sometimes by indirect means. — Bertha Von Suttner

I intend to leave after my death a large fund for the promotion of the peace idea, but I am skeptical as to its results. — Alfred Nobel