“Morals are taught & preached not for the sake of heaven, but to assist those people on earth who have everything they need & more to retain their possessions & to help them to accumulate still more. Morals is the butter for those who have no bread.”

“No use to preach to the working-man courtesy & politeness when at the same time the working-man is not given working conditions under which he can stay polite and soft-mannered.”

“Anyone who is willing to work and is serious about it will certainly find a job. Only you must not go to the man who tells you this, for he has no job to offer and doesn't know anyone who knows of a vacancy. This is exactly the reason why he gives you such generous advice, out of brotherly love, and to demonstrate how little he knows the world.”

“The prison was very important - as everywhere on earth. Everywhere the building of a prison is the first step in the organization of a civilized state.”

“A trip to a Central American jungle to watch how Indians behave near a bridge won't make you see either the jungle or the bridge or the Indians if you believe that the civilization you were born into is the only one that counts. Go and look around with the idea that everything you learned in school and college is wrong.”

“For centuries, the battle of morality was fought between those who claimed that your life belongs to God and those who claimed that it belongs to your neighbors - between those who preached that the good is self-sacrifice for the sake of ghosts in heaven and those who preached that the good is self-sacrifice for the sake of incompetents on earth. And no one came to say that your life belongs to you and that the good is to live it.”

“There are few things more pathetic than those who have lost their curiosity and sense of adventure, and who no longer care to learn.”