Nobel, a wealthy Swedish industrialist who invented dynamite, provided few directions for how to select winners, except that the prize committees should reward those who "have conferred the greatest benefit to mankind".
If ever you needed a microcosm of why this general election has been the absolute worst thing that mankind has ever been forced to endure, you only have to look as far as BBC1's Question Time special.
As the physicist and inventor Leo Szilard once remarked: "This is not the tragedy of the scientist; it is the tragedy of mankind".
We want a political system which really represent the variety and diversity of our societies: All decisions affecting all mankind should be taken in democratic forums like a participatory and direct UN parliamentary assembly or a UN people's assembly, not rich clubs such as G20 or G8.
– It is difficult to conceive why they should select a situation apparently so ineligible, and so incompatible with their usual shy and cautious habits, as the centre of a large town; but we hope they will not be molested, and that they will have no cause to repent the confidence they have thus reposed in mankind.
The Evening Standard's Robert Fox was taken with the argument "that, looking at the broad sweep of the past 10,000 years, war has led to the improvement, security and prosperity of much of mankind.
There are very few people in their careers that have the opportunity to do something to benefit mankind".
Former West Wing star Lowe will play Father Jude, the Vatican's most rebellious priest who finds himself among a band of people who may – or may not – be the future of mankind, including an unhinged white supremacist, a germ-phobic cyber-terrorist, a mild-mannered bank manager and an American five-star general.
The fine philosopher Linus (yes, the Peanuts character) once remarked: "I love mankind; it's people I can't stand".
The president of the United States has demanded that no one shall receive the fugitive, and maybe only the Brazilian president, Dilma Rousseff, wants to prepare in time an asylum for mankind.
They established the United Nations and agreed a simple set of universal standards of decency for mankind to cling to: the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
