A man who sees another man on the street corner with only a stump for an arm will be so shocked the first time he'll give him sixpence. But the second time it'll only be a three penny bit. And if he sees him a third time, he'll have him cold-bloodedly handed over to the police.

Life is short and so is money.

Unhappiness doesn't grow on the chest like leprosy. Poverty won't fall off the roof like a loose tile, no; poverty and unhappiness are man's doing.

The law was made for one thing alone, for the exploitation of those who don't understand it, or are prevented by naked misery from obeying it.

Literary works cannot be taken over like factories, or literary forms of expression like industrial methods. Realist writing, of which history offers many widely varying examples, is likewise conditioned by the question of how, when and for what class it is made use of.

Erst kommt das Fressen, dann kommt die Moral.

It isn't important to come out on top, what matters is to be the one who comes out alive.