Karl Marx
economist, journalist, historian, philosopher, sociologist, revolutionary, poet, politician, writer
Read on Wikipedia1818 – 1883
All Quotes by Karl Marx
“Men's ideas are the most direct emanations of their material state.”
“It is not history which uses men as a means of achieving - as if it were an individual person - its own ends. History is nothing but the activity of men in pursuit of their ends.”
“Anyone who knows anything of history knows that great social changes are impossible without feminine upheaval. Social progress can be measured exactly by the social position of the fair sex, the ugly ones included.”
“On a level plain, simple mounds look like hills; and the insipid flatness of our present bourgeoisie is to be measured by the altitude of its great intellects.”
“History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.”
“Social progress can be measured by the social position of the female sex.”
“Workers of the world unite; you have nothing to lose but your chains.”
“The production of too many useful things results in too many useless people.”
“Reason has always existed, but not always in a reasonable form.”
“Necessity is blind until it becomes conscious. Freedom is the consciousness of necessity.”
“The theory of Communism may be summed up in one sentence: Abolish all private property.”
“Capital is dead labor, which, vampire-like, lives only by sucking living labor, and lives the more, the more labor it sucks.”
“Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.”
“The meaning of peace is the absence of opposition to socialism.”
“The writer must earn money in order to be able to live and to write, but he must by no means live and write for the purpose of making money.”
“Revolutions are the locomotives of history.”
“In bourgeois society capital is independent and has individuality, while the living person is dependent and has no individuality.”
“We should not say that one man's hour is worth another man's hour, but rather that one man during an hour is worth just as much as another man during an hour. Time is everything, man is nothing: he is at the most time's carcass.”
“The worker of the world has nothing to lose, but their chains, workers of the world unite.”
“Capitalist production, therefore, develops technology, and the combining together of various processes into a social whole, only by sapping the original sources of all wealth - the soil and the labourer.”
“For the bureaucrat, the world is a mere object to be manipulated by him.”
“Landlords, like all other men, love to reap where they never sowed.”
“Capital is reckless of the health or length of life of the laborer, unless under compulsion from society.”
“Men's ideas are the most direct emanations of their material state.”
“Capital is money, capital is commodities. By virtue of it being value, it has acquired the occult ability to add value to itself. It brings forth living offspring, or, at the least, lays golden eggs.”
“The development of civilization and industry in general has always shown itself so active in the destruction of forests that everything that has been done for their conservation and production is completely insignificant in comparison.”
“In a higher phase of communist society... only then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be fully left behind and society inscribe on its banners: from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.”
“Experience praises the most happy the one who made the most people happy.”
“The more the division of labor and the application of machinery extend, the more does competition extend among the workers, the more do their wages shrink together.”
“Natural science will in time incorporate into itself the science of man, just as the science of man will incorporate into itself natural science: there will be one science.”
“Greek philosophy seems to have met with something with which a good tragedy is not supposed to meet, namely, a dull ending.”
“The English have all the material requisites for the revolution. What they lack is the spirit of generalization and revolutionary ardour.”
“The country that is more developed industrially only shows, to the less developed, the image of its own future.”
“There is a specter haunting Europe, the specter of Communism.”
“The only antidote to mental suffering is physical pain.”
“If anything is certain, it is that I myself am not a Marxist.”
“Democracy is the road to socialism.”
“From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.”
“Let the ruling classes tremble at a communist revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. Workingmen of all countries, unite!”
“The rich will do anything for the poor but get off their backs.”
“Religion is the opium of the masses.”
“Nothing can have value without being an object of utility.”
“The first requisite for the happiness of the people is the abolition of religion.”
“Art is always and everywhere the secret confession, and at the same time the immortal movement of its time.”
“The history of all previous societies has been the history of class struggles.”
“Religion is the impotence of the human mind to deal with occurrences it cannot understand.”
“History does nothing; it does not possess immense riches, it does not fight battles. It is men, real, living, who do all this.”
“Landlords, like all other men, love to reap where they never sowed.”
“Anyone who knows anything of history knows that great social changes are impossible without feminine upheaval. Social progress can be measured exactly by the social position of the fair sex, the ugly ones included.”
“The human being is in the most literal sense a political animal, not merely a gregarious animal, but an animal which can individuate itself only in the midst of society.”
“Society does not consist of individuals but expresses the sum of interrelations, the relations within which these individuals stand.”
“While the miser is merely a capitalist gone mad, the capitalist is a rational miser.”
“The ruling ideas of each age have ever been the ideas of its ruling class.”
“Machines were, it may be said, the weapon employed by the capitalists to quell the revolt of specialized labor.”
“The ruling ideas of each age have ever been the ideas of its ruling class.”
“Medicine heals doubts as well as diseases.”
“The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e., the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force.”
“On a level plain, simple mounds look like hills; and the insipid flatness of our present bourgeoisie is to be measured by the altitude of its great intellects.”
“A specter is haunting Europe - the specter of communism.”
“Without doubt, machinery has greatly increased the number of well-to-do idlers.”
“Time is everything, man is nothing; he is, at most, time's carcass.”
“It is not history which uses men as a means of achieving - as if it were an individual person - its own ends. History is nothing but the activity of men in pursuit of their ends.”
“The product of mental labor - science - always stands far below its value, because the labor-time necessary to reproduce it has no relation at all to the labor-time required for its original production.”
“It is absolutely impossible to transcend the laws of nature. What can change in historically different circumstances is only the form in which these laws expose themselves.”
“The writer may very well serve a movement of history as its mouthpiece, but he cannot of course create it.”
“A commodity appears at first sight an extremely obvious, trivial thing. But its analysis brings out that it is a very strange thing, abounding in metaphysical subtleties and theological niceties.”
“History does nothing; it does not possess immense riches, it does not fight battles. It is men, real, living, who do all this.”
“The country that is more developed industrially only shows, to the less developed, the image of its own future.”
“The history of all previous societies has been the history of class struggles.”
“The writer must earn money in order to be able to live and to write, but he must by no means live and write for the purpose of making money.”
“Capital is reckless of the health or length of life of the laborer, unless under compulsion from society.”
“Landlords, like all other men, love to reap where they never sowed.”
“As far as immediate material production is concerned, the decision whether an object is to be produced or not, i.e., the decision on the”
“Capital is money, capital is commodities. By virtue of it being value, it has acquired the occult ability to add value to itself. It brings forth living offspring, or, at the least, lays golden eggs.”
“Necessity is blind until it becomes conscious. Freedom is the consciousness of necessity.”
“The first requisite for the happiness of the people is the abolition of religion.”
“It is absolutely impossible to transcend the laws of nature. What can change in historically different circumstances is only the form in which these laws expose themselves.”
“Art is always and everywhere the secret confession, and at the same time the immortal movement of its time.”
“Revolutions are the locomotives of history.”
“Go on, get out! Last words are for fools who haven't said enough!”
“The writer may very well serve a movement of history as its mouthpiece, but he cannot of course create it.”
“Communism is when iPhone.”
“History does nothing; it does not possess immense riches, it does not fight battles. It is men, real, living, who do all this.”
“Experience praises the most happy the one who made the most people happy.”