It was because of a woman named Bertha Kinsky. She was a pacifist and a free-thinker (which means anti-religious). He fell in love with her, and they married, but she left him. He was wealthy, but not intellectually respected. He inherited his father's industrial business, which was, horror of horrors, an arms manufacturer. He was not a college graduate, but he learned chemistry anyway and developed dynamite, and became one of the wealthiest men in the world. He went on to write poems and anti-Christian plays, but they never respected him. She never really respected him. Alfred Nobel had money, but not status...
