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Alfred Nobel

lines on the record: 34
first: 2021-01-18
most recent: 2021-01-18
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“Doing in the world. And there's also, so there's an upside to that. He obviously was able to patent his work. He's able to build a large empire on top of that. But the author does a great job of talking about the downsides to being a pioneer. He also discovered that the cost of being a pioneer could be tragically high. There's this giant explosion that kills his little brother, and there's a description of this. The yard outside the main building was deserted when catastrophe hit. The laboratory in the shed exploded with a thunderous roar. So now as an eyewitness description of the aftermath of this gigantic nitroglycerin explosion. Most Ghastly was the site of the mutilated corpses strawn on the ground. Not only had their clothes been torn off, but on some, the head was missing and the flesh ripped off the bones. These formless masses of flesh and bone bore little or no resemblance to a human body. The effect of this explosion.”
2021-01-18 · Founders · #163 Alfred Nobel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Alfred's method of research was helped by a well developed intuition. The more than 50 experiments that preceded his invention of the patent and igniter did not involve teamwork. Alfred rarely included colleagues in the preliminary work. He would grab people when it was time to produce his experiments into commercial products, but not when he was doing the extra experimentation. He does it towards the end of his life. He meets actually the executor of his will, winds up being a young chemist, and they start working together. Him and a couple other people. But for the most part, he worked alone. Alfred rarely included colleagues in the premier work, so in all probability direction of his project remained secret until the very end. He was a stranger to the kind of teamwork that modern research tends to favor. He liked to work alone in his laboratory. And I think one of the reasons he liked to work alone is because he saw himself as a bit of a pioneer, as somebody that's at the very edges of scientific knowledge and experimentation, someone doing chemistry that no one else is.”
2021-01-18 · Founders · #163 Alfred Nobel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“since the invention of gunpowder, the introduction of a detonating cap, which is what Dynamite has, writes the British historian FD Miles, is without a doubt, the greatest discovery that has ever been made in the theory and practice of explosives. This is a hell of a sentence. Check this out. On this discovery, all modern application of explosives is based.”
2021-01-18 · Founders · #163 Alfred Nobel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“First, right? So, this is what he notices about his father and what he wants to avoid. Alfred could not have failed to notice his father's helplessness and self-pity. It was clear that both as an entrepreneur and an inventor, Emmanuel's desires exceeded his abilities. He was increasingly unable to sift through the unrealizable ideas for the viable ones. So this is a great description of the importance of Alfred's invention, and we can think about how important his invention was as the foundation that he builds his very successful business on. So it says Alfred had joined that group of human beings who extend the boundary post to progress. His creative energy defined the development of the explosive substance industry. Time and time again, he bridged the gap between theory and application, thought and action. He was proving to be the inventor of the impossible. Scientists in the field had declared his work on initial ignition to represent the greatest progress in explosive substance techniques.”
2021-01-18 · Founders · #163 Alfred Nobel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Alfred never forgot poverty that the author's constantly reminding us over and over again. A little bit more about the early days of his company, and this is really a celebration of sentences. This is one sentence that tells an entire story. Financial pressure was accelerating his development as an inventor. And this is a little bit more about what Alfred again notices in his father. This is a main idea that we see constantly over and over again in these books that you can learn a great way to learn.”
2021-01-18 · Founders · #163 Alfred Nobel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Of dollars. There's no way he's ever going to be poor again. And yet, you see, it's like he buys a hat. And, you know, it's like $6. I'm using dollars. He dealt in all kinds of currencies. He had businesses all spread throughout multiple countries in Europe. But anyways, let's say hat, $6, lunch, $15. Then I say he sent Ludwig $2.3 million. Just like this, everything was like where there was a business expense or a personal expense. It was in the same book and it was just hilarious to me to see that. It's like, okay, I bought a hat. Oh, I also gave my brother $2.3 million for his oil company. So anyways, the reason I bring that is way past the point where he could spend all his money. He was still down to the dot, like down to the very last accounting for every single expense, no matter how small or how large. And I think that's tied into this.”
2021-01-18 · Founders · #163 Alfred Nobel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“His feelings of responsibility toward his parents, his determination that they should not want for anything was a powerful force. Alfred never forgot poverty. There is variations in that sentence. Alfred never forgot poverty. There's got to be half a dozen different variations of that sentence throughout this entire book. It was clearly one of his motivating factors in life. In fact, it was a lot of people, I kept hounding on the fact that he was gifted on the financial aspect of business as well. He would constantly be able to read companies' books and discover if there was fraud going on. He just had a very good natural instinct for numbers. But what was also interesting in the book was that he would, he carried around a little book with him and he wrote down every single expenditure. And even later in his life, there's they reprint one of the pages in this diary of numbers. You could think of it in that way, right? And at the time, he's worth the equivalent of hundreds of millions.”
2021-01-18 · Founders · #163 Alfred Nobel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And so Alfred's now this he's the one that's going to lead his family out of poverty, okay? Alfred's private correspondence indicates that he was constantly on edge during this period. His father's bitter fate was much on his mind. Every member of the Nobel family was acutely aware of how sudden poverty could kill dignity, but Alfred especially was haunted. Alfred always seemed he's around thirty years old this time, by the way. Alfred always seemed to find a way out. He was driven not by desire for fame, but by fear.”
2021-01-18 · Founders · #163 Alfred Nobel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Of acting seriously. So he winds up building a prototype is the way I would describe it. He has a prototype. He raises money. He gets a loan. Things are still tight, though. His business is not on solid footing yet. He's going to get it there in large part. He does almost everything himself, which is remarkable. But the reason that I'm making the point and letting you know that his business is not on solid financial footing is because this next section really demonstrates that the knowledge that things can turn very bad, which happened to him now twice in his life, can be highly motivating you to stop that from occurring again in the future. And we see that he's got this just determination to not be poor. On several occasions, Alfred was so short of money he was forced to consider giving up. Instead, he took upon himself the entire responsibility of his family's finances. His dad has no money. This is after they've moved back from Russia back to Sweden, which is where their family is originally from.”
2021-01-18 · Founders · #163 Alfred Nobel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Just because that's the nice thing to do. It's like family love, right? So he says, the only reason for indulgence on my part would be family love. But in order for that to be maintained, it has to be mutual and requires at least the same consideration as one owes to strangers. Your sudden departure from Petersburg at the moment when I, he was very, very sick. He was sick all the time throughout his life, but in this case they were worried that he was going to die. He says, your sudden departure from Petersburg at the moment when I, as you yourself expressed it, was on my deathbed, was probably less a proof of love than of fear. But in you, fatherly love seems to run aground on complacency or vanity. It should not seem strange that I, at the age of thirty, will not allow myself to be treated as a schoolboy. It pains me to have to provide this whole long explanation which ought to have been unnecessary, but when it comes to serious matters, I have adopted the rule.”
2021-01-18 · Founders · #163 Alfred Nobel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And I don't think he's wrong in this case. I think his father is in the wrong in this situation. He's just not allowing, even his father, he's not willing to defer to his father here. He says, rather than regarding this idea as your own, far from it, you made a bit of fun of it at my expense. I decided then to take off the leash and find another way of reaching my goal without conflict or unpleasantness. So he's going on into like what he's describing in the letter what he did differently than his father because his father was also doing experiments in nitroglycerin but Alfred was the one that arrived at the invention of dynamite not his father. So he says I would scarcely serve to deny the credit I deserve in the matter. I can hardly make myself believe that such would be your serious intent, but can only ascribe it to bad humor or ill health. So he's saying like the only reason I'm going to give anybody else in the family credit besides me”
2021-01-18 · Founders · #163 Alfred Nobel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“A lot of people, there's going to be huge demand for controlled explosives. Think about at the time they're in knowledge, there are obviously military applications of this and there's a lot of different European governments that use it for that. But this is the expansion of the railroads at this point. So there's a ton of private nonviolent industry that needs a way that they're building railroads through mountains through all kinds of different geography and they need a way to move rock essentially and that's what dynamite is used for. Now his father is very vain person starts claiming credit for Alfred's invention. And so he's trying to take credit for Alfred's work and this I'm going to read to you the end of a letter that Alfred wrote his father and we see just his like prickly his determination to be the master of everything that he's involved in and he's not he won't let even his father”
2021-01-18 · Founders · #163 Alfred Nobel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Alfred's little brother, and I'll go into more detail about the gruesome accident that happens. So says he became fascinated by the substance in workable and its inexplicable behavior. In front of his amazed students, the Professor Zinin had poured a few drops of the fluid on an anvil and then struck it with a hammer. The liquid exploded, but not the matter on which it was poured. So Alfred thought there's some great mystery that he had to find out how. What is this thing? For Alfred, this was the greatest challenge he had ever faced. How to detonate this explosive and liberate its awesome power. He carried out one risky experiment after another. One day it occurred to him to mix black gunpowder with nitroglycerin and light the mixture with a regular fuse. That is, think about what he just discovered as the prototype for dynamite. Now once word gets out on what he's able to do, he has this essentially quote unquote controlling of nitroglycerin is the way to think about dynamite.”
2021-01-18 · Founders · #163 Alfred Nobel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And is remarkable and seemingly inexplicable behavior, so that inexplicable behavior leads to a lot. They didn't understand at the beginning. So there's a lot of explosions, even the inventor, who was mixing a little bit out of his perfect safe. The glass that he's holding his hand explodes, he winds up getting shrapnel and having scars in his face. The amount of people that die in the development of the dynamite industry is...”
2021-01-18 · Founders · #163 Alfred Nobel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“About Ascanio Soboreo, who used to work with one of their other professor friends, so don't worry about that. So this guy, Ascanio, had observations regarding liquid that had been shown to be a powerful explosive, nitroglycerin. So this is the inventor of nitroglycerin later in his life after Alfred expands the market for nitroglycerin with the invention of dynamite, Ascanio says he, given all the death and destruction that his invention caused, he wished he never invented it. So he had a series of depression and melancholy towards the end of his life because he thought his life's work was corrupted essentially. So it says, despite warnings from sobrero, I don't know how to pronounce his name, regarding any attempts to find any proctor, he says, despite warnings from the inventor regarding any attempts to find any practical applications for the discovery, Alfred became fascinated by the substance.”
2021-01-18 · Founders · #163 Alfred Nobel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Of income from the military sector, and soon Emmanuel was threatened by bankruptcy for the second time. Desperate he tried various ways of keeping the family company afloat. Alfred now 25 was sent to visit bank presidents in Paris and London. They turned him down. With the war over, Nobel and Sons, which is the name of the company, was no longer considered a good risk. Bankruptcy was becoming hard reality. Now around this time, the brothers are still working, they get back in touch with some of their former teachers, their tutors, right? And one of them is called this guy named Zinin. And he introduces Alfred and his brothers to the inventor of nitroglycerin. So think of nitroglycerin as the main explosive that Albert quote unquote masters he controls. So let me give you a little bit about the background because this introduction to nitroglycerin is a turning point in Alfred's life. That's why I'm explaining it to you. So they had already told him.”
2021-01-18 · Founders · #163 Alfred Nobel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Get on accounting for your cost, it's permanent. Focus on that aspect of the business, which is very counterintuitive, I feel, to a lot of people. Surprising. Very similar to the reason I bring that up is because Nobel echoes that a lot. He hates the amount of debt that his brother takes on when he's expanding the oil company later. And just his father's inability to reconcile the finances of the business. And then the reason I think he's so obviously passionate about that end is because his father's inability to master this causes great pain for the family, right? So he says there were other disagreements. Alfred worried about his father taking out large loans. This is so funny. This is happening now because I didn't know this at the time I'm doing these highlights, but let's say 15 years of visuals having the same disagreements with his brother. When the Crimean War ended in 1856, the Tsar Alexander II was forced to sign a humiliating peace treaty in Paris. The Russian government stopped fulfilling its obligations. The situation became critical. Orders from the civilian market couldn't compensate for the loss of the...”
2021-01-18 · Founders · #163 Alfred Nobel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“First, I'll get there in one second. This is a little bit about the beliefs of a young Nobel at the time. This did not stop him from believing all inventions as symbols of progress belonged to all of humanity. He felt, as many artists do, that the work itself is the reward, and that one shouldn't count on any other. It was a belief that Alfred had held on to as a very young man. He had not forgotten the humiliation of poverty. So this idea they repeat over and over again, he never forgot the humiliation of poverty. He never forgot what it was like to become poor. This causes him to beef. He beefs with his dad's reckless ways. And the way he talks to his father is very similar the way he's going to talk to his brothers or other people that business partners, anybody that disappoints him when he feels they're being sloppy on the financial aspect of the business. It's funny. I just went through, I reread yesterday my highlights for the book Meet You in Hell, which is about the partnership that eventually fractured between Andrew Carr.”
2021-01-18 · Founders · #163 Alfred Nobel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Years old, the time, and he works himself to exhaustion constantly. Alfred worked with such enthusiasm that by summer of 1854 he became ill from over exertion. By this point his father's company employed more than a thousand men, and during the Crimean War, the workplace was relentless, so a lot of the revenue, this is the dangers of having one large customer be responsible for the majority of her revenue because the majority of the company's revenue at the time is coming from the Russian government as they're fighting this war. After the war. So they make his father Emmanuel buy a bunch of equipment he spends hundreds of equivalent hundreds of thousands of dollars in new equipment and then after the war, Russian government just refuses to pay him. And so this is going, and his dad's not good with money to begin with. And so this is going to lead to the second bankruptcy of Alfred's father.”
2021-01-18 · Founders · #163 Alfred Nobel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“With time, the assortment of products for the civilian market expanded to include heating units and piping conduits. Emmanuel had invented and was now manufacturing Russia's first central heating system as well. More about his personality as a result of all the experiences going through, the self-awareness that would become so characteristic of him was awakening, and with it the determination to be the master of every situation. He was not going to throw himself into the world and let luck or chance lead the way. So a really good idea from him. Also, this idea about, hey, I'm determined to be the master of every situation. He saw financial strength as a way to be the master of every situation. He set up his business so he would not, he avoided having to rely once his business was up and running and it was profitable, he wanted to avoid relying on other people's money. And he did that for his entire life. We also see young Alfred doing something that he does this entire life. He's around 21.”
2021-01-18 · Founders · #163 Alfred Nobel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Along with the pack. So, this entire time during this childhood, he's working in his father's factory, he's running, he's doing chemistry experiments, and he's just soaking up as much experience and knowledge as he can. And so it says the transformation Alfred underwent during these years was remarkable. Out of a shy, brooding, sickly childhood arose an efficient and tough entrepreneur, interested in everything and surprised by nothing. His contributions were critical, and in just a few years, the small workshop company developed into one of Russia's largest”
2021-01-18 · Founders · #163 Alfred Nobel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“During his life, Alfred found only a handful of people with whom he could speak openly and honestly, and one of them is Petrov. So at this point, the author gives us some background about what it was like living in Russia at this time. This is this crazy story about Dostewski. I can't never pronounce this guy's name correctly, but it said police surveillance and censorship were constant realities in Tsarist Russia. Alfred turned 16 the year Doyevsky was imprisoned and sentenced to death, a sentence that was later commuted to four years in the penitentiary in Siberia. The Tsar had toyed with him in a cruel fashion. Doyetsky and others were condemned to be shot. They were dressed in white shirts and taken to a place of execution, and then they were pardoned. Do you imagine living through that? And then this is a little bit about in the same paragraph. We get a great sentence into the personality of Alfred. He was repelled by the collective and could never bring himself to go.”
2021-01-18 · Founders · #163 Alfred Nobel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Which he had already previously done, but never what one knows. As soon as his personal finance improved, he was therefore eager for his sons to receive the best education available. So he starts hiring all these private tutors for his three boys. Emmanuel's thirst for knowledge was inherited by his sons, who were not only trained as engineers, but exceptionally well-read men. That's another thing about Alfred. Anytime that he's not working, he's reading. From the very first, Alfred was fascinated by the speculative and experimental elements of chemistry, and this became his favorite subject. So he winds up getting a chemist tutor, essentially. The teacher Alfred grew most fond of was the Wise Peter Off, is this guy's name. Peteroff showed fatherly concern toward Alfred. His favorite student drew immense strength from Peteroff's praise, which spurred him to redouble his efforts. Alfred quickly and effortlessly caught up with his older brothers, and his teacher sensed his pupil's genius.”
2021-01-18 · Founders · #163 Alfred Nobel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Exporter. It was Alfred's combination of all three qualities that took him the furthest. So that's a good way, like a good shorthand way to think about Alfred Nobel, brains, discipline, enterprise. Okay, so at this point in the story, his father is back up, so he had been previously successful, then went bankrupt. Then he starts developing underwater mines for Russia. So he moves the family to Russia. He's having success because the Tsar of Russia at the time is taking interest saying, hey, we need a way to defend Russia's waters without manpower and a lot of money. And so that's what Emmanuel Nobel, that's Alfred's father, is doing at the time. And so in this story, we see Alfred's hunger for knowledge and then the importance of teachers to cultivate that knowledge, which winds up changing the path of his life. Emmanuel Noble's experiences had taught him that knowledge is the most valuable of all assets. One might lose one's money.”
2021-01-18 · Founders · #163 Alfred Nobel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Of a young Alfred. And these are personality traits I think he has his entire life brains, discipline, and enterprise. He is, let's see, how old is he? Eight years old at the time. His teacher's praise made Alfred feel special. The frail boy who had such difficulty asserting himself among the older brothers and their friends was now suddenly distinguished himself. Diligence and talent had already set him apart. This is his father talking about, he's comparing all his, he's got three boys. Actually, these are the three that survive. He's telling us, he's very, like, he's predicting the future here, I guess, is what I'm saying. According to my evaluation, Ludvig has the most brains. Alfred the greatest discipline, and Robert the greatest sense of enterprise, but also a perseverance that amazed me several times last winter. Ludwig went on to become a highly successful entrepreneur in St. Petersburg, and Robert would reach success as an oil.”
2021-01-18 · Founders · #163 Alfred Nobel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Feeling that people are not living up to standards is something that stays with them for his whole life. Alfred would later criticize both his father and his brother. This is his brother Ludwig, the one that's going to run the largest oil company in Russia. For thinking the financing of a project secondary to Alfred solving the matter of financing was primary. That is one of the most important sentences in the book. And this is another idea that we've seen express in many different other examples. The one that comes to mind is that book, I think it's called The Empire of Light. This is the difference between Alfred and his brother and his father is the same difference between Nicola Tesla and Edison. If you think about the same idea, let's go back over that sentence again. He would criticize both his brother and his father for thinking the financing of a project secondary to Alfred solving the matter of financing was primary. So we'll go into more detail on that later. This is a description.”
2021-01-18 · Founders · #163 Alfred Nobel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And so Alfred thought that his father was very frivolous when it came to the financial aspects of his business, said yes, you can invent things, you can, in some cases, you know, you have thousands of people working for you, but you don't know how to maintain your success because you're not paying attention to the financial part of the business. And that's where the role he helped his brother play in the oil company, but also in the Beaufort company as well. The Dynamay Company was just profitable constantly, which we'll see. So it says Alfred's growing bitterness derived in part from his sense that people around him did not measure up to his standards. This is where it comes. He's kind of like a snob, that they were driven by greed, exacerbated his suspiciousness, and his disgust. His way of honoring his mother was by remaining scrupulously honest. And so his letters are full of being disappointed in partners and vendors and employees and just this habit that he has of”
2021-01-18 · Founders · #163 Alfred Nobel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“To making cannons, manufacturing cannons, and then also producing chemicals. And the reason I'm telling you all, that's the reason I'm bringing it to your attention is because it's just remarkable. His main focus was his business, his dynamite business. And somehow in his spare time, he wound up being invaluable to two other gigantic companies. He was the definitely gifted entrepreneur. And we're going to see a lot of that comes from just learning from the mistakes of his father. So this is how we get to where we are in the book. One thing to know about him first is that he was sick his entire life, kind of like a sickly child. Since Alfred's constant ill health kept him from taking part in his siblings and other children's games. In a way, Alfred remained a pensive lookeron. I would write pensive onlooker his whole life. His parents' social disgrace was the foundation for his bitterest childhood memory. So what are they talking about that? His father had a series of booms and then following busts throughout his life. He went bankrupt.”
2021-01-18 · Founders · #163 Alfred Nobel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Business empire, but he's also extremely gifted entrepreneur. Not only did his main business produce, gave him a net worth in his day of equivalent to hundreds of millions of dollars. His brother starts one of the largest, or the largest oil company in Russia. I think at the time, at their peak, they were producing, I think, 80% of all oil in Russia and I think 50% of all oil throughout the world. And his brother relied heavily on Alfred as not only an advisor, but also an investor as well. And so at the time of his death, I think 25% of Alfred's net worth was tied up in oil. But not only that, right before his death, he also takes over and completely turns around a company that's still around. It's been in the business for 350 years. This is this company called Beaufort, I think is how you pronounce it. He reshapes the company from an iron and steel producer.”
2021-01-18 · Founders · #163 Alfred Nobel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Get you excited about all these different ideas, and yet he detested his fellow humans. He said he would soar like a wind driven swallow, some kind of bird, from one subject to another, as seen against the rapid flight of his thought. Our globe would shrink and its distances melt, becoming trivial. Okay, so let's go to his early life. I want to tell you a little bit about his personality, and I think a large idea that we need to understand, to understand Nobel and why he was the way he was, is he tried to learn from the mistakes of his father. And his father was also an inventor and an entrepreneur. He also built weapons of destruction, but he was not able to maintain success over a long period of time. And so I guess that's another thing I should tell you right up front. Nobel was not only was he a gifted chemist and brilliant and able to invent things that he was able to patent and then build his...”
2021-01-18 · Founders · #163 Alfred Nobel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Talk to him. So said Nobel could talk and philosophize in such an entertaining manner that it was pure pleasure and delight to his rapt audience to spend an hour chatting with him was both a remarkable joy and a challenging exercise because you had to stand on your toes to follow his unexpected turns of thought and startling paradoxes. It's funny that she's using the word paradox because that's the way I would describe him as well, this brilliant mind that is hidden under this prickly, he's just kind of an ass and a jerk. A lot of his workers call him a taskmaster. And so there's this paradox that he spent a large part of his life running experiments, working, building his own base of knowledge. He'd read constantly so he would accumulate all this interesting information. And he's able to, in private conversations, kind of like...”
2021-01-18 · Founders · #163 Alfred Nobel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Nobel found it impossible to maintain his self esteem if he had to seek the esteem of others. His letters are particularly invaluable to our understanding and appreciation of him. The private correspondence allows readers to locate the undercurrents in his life. His self absorption, his loneliness, and his belief in the absurdity of existence. Many of the private letters seem to have been written during those moments when the demons of melancholy were on the offensive. When they attacked, work was his only escape. Its soothing effect was immediate. Actions are the yardstick by which values can be measured. An Alfred Nobel left a legacy of lasting importance. Through his prizes this restless, eternal wanderer, whom the writer Victor Hugo termed Europe's richest vagabond, has forever etched his name in human memory.”
2021-01-18 · Founders · #163 Alfred Nobel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But Nobel did strive to be someone. His workdays were absurdly long. He would frequently work for fifteen, even twenty hours without rest. It was as if he wanted to exhaust himself in order to ward off melancholy. Since he detested meetings, he often put his orders in writing. He could write twenty to thirty letters a day, and he seldom went to bed before midnight. He had an aversion to publicity. When the publisher of an illustrated book listing famous and outstanding Swedes wrote him, Nobel replied courteously but firmly I will with pleasure subscribe to this interesting and worthwhile project, but I request that my portrait be omitted from this collection. So far as I know I have not earned any renown.”
2021-01-18 · Founders · #163 Alfred Nobel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Alfred Nobel honestly felt that his life was so commonplace as to not deserve profound reflection, much less publication. Trying to sum up his life in one terse sentence, he offered the following 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. Given Nobel's strong distaste for blowing his own horn, when he was confronted with spontaneous expressions of admiration, he actually experienced a sense of shame, as if a feeling of unworthiness had taken possession of him. His reflections might then take on a tone of sarcasm. He wrote How pitiful to strive to be someone or something in the motley crew of one point four billion two legged, tailless apes running around on our revolving earth projectile.”
2021-01-18 · Founders · #163 Alfred Nobel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source