But Nobel's main concern was never with making money or even with making scientific discoveries. Seldom happy, he was always searching for a meaning to life, and from his youth had taken a serious interest in literature and philosophy. Perhaps because he could not find ordinary human love — he never married — he came to care deeply about the whole of mankind. He was always generous to the poor: "I'd rather take care of the stomachs of the living than the glory of the dead in the form of stone memorials," he once said. His greatest wish, however, was to see an end to wars, and thus peace between nations, and he spent much time and money working for this cause until his death in Italy in 1896. His famous will, in which he left money to provide prizes for outstanding work in Physics, Chemistry, Physiology（生理学）,Medicine, Literature and Peace, is a memorial to his interests and ideals. And so, the man who felt he should have died at birth is remembered and respected long after his death.
但诺贝尔主要关注的既不是赚钱，也不是探求科学上的发现。他郁郁寡欢，总在探索人生的意义，从青年时代起便对文学和哲学产生了浓厚的兴趣。或许是因为他找寻不到普通人的欢爱——他终生未娶——便逐渐对全体人类产生关切深情。他对穷人向来慷慨大度。“我宁肯关心生者的饥肠，而不愿为死者树碑立传，”他曾这么说过。然而他最大的愿望是期盼战争不再，国与国之间从而能永享和平。他为此投入了大量的时间和财力，直至1896年在意大利去世。他在遗嘱中将钱留出来，为在物理、化学、生理学、医学和文学以及和平事业方面所作的杰出成就提供奖金，他的这一著名遗嘱是他多种兴趣与理想的纪念碑。就这样，一个觉得自己出生时就该死去的人，死后很久仍受到人们的缅怀与尊敬。