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

“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. ”

“Good wishes alone will not ensure peace.”

“Justice is to be found only in imagination.”

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

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

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

“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.”

“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.”

“Home is where I work, and I work everywhere.”

“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.”