Quotes from Karl Marx

oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class are to represent and repress them.

Philosophers have hitherto interpreted the world in various way; the point, however, is to change it

National differences and antagonism between peoples are daily more and more vanishing, owing to the development of the bourgeoisie, to freedom of commerce, to the world market, to uniformity in the mode of production and in the conditions of life corresponding thereto.

In the economic system, under the rule of private property, the interest which an individual has in society is in precisely inverse proportion to the interest society has in him — just as the interest of the usurer in the spendthrift is by no means identical with the interest of the spendthrift.

The medieval proverb nulle terre sans seigneur [There is no land without its lord. — Ed.] is thereby replaced by that other proverb, l'argent n'a pas de maître [Money knows no master. — Ed.], wherein is expressed the complete domination of dead matter over man.

The classes and the races, too weak to master the new conditions of life, must give way.

First to control the people, first control the media." Karl Marx

The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is, to change it

noblesse parlementaire par cinq départements qui avaient groupé leurs vois sur son nom. Ainsi, la Montagne paraissait, le 29 mai 1849, étant donné les conflits inévitables entre les différentes fractions monarchistes et entre l'ensemble du parti de l'ordre et Bonaparte, avoir pour elle tous les éléments de succès. Quinze jours plus tard, elle avait tout perdu, y compris l'honneur.

Political economy starts with the fact of private property; it does not explain it to us. It expresses in general, abstract formulas the material process through which private property actually passes, and these formulas it then takes for laws . It does not comprehend these laws — i.e., it does not demonstrate how they arise from the very nature of private property.

To be a capitalist, is to have not only a purely personal, but a social, status in production. Capital is a collective product, and only by the united action of many members, nay, in the last resort, only by the united action of all members of society, can it be set in motion. Capital is, therefore, not a personal, it is a social power.

Those professions which are not so much involved in life itself as concerned with abstract truths are the most dangerous for the young man whose principles are not yet firm and whose convictions are not yet strong and unshakeable.

Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past.

All commodities, as values, are realized human labours.

Those professions which are not so much involved in life itself as concerned with abstract truths are the most dangerous for the young man whose principles are not yet firm and whose convictions are not yet strong and unshakeable. At the same time these professions may seem to be the most exalted if they have taken deep root in our hearts and if we are capable of sacrificing our lives and all endeavours for the ideas which prevail in them.

What is certain is that I myself am not a Marxist

E]verything which appears in the worker as an activity of alienation , of estrangement , appears in the non-worker as a state of alienation , of estrangement .

Last words are for fools who haven't said enough

también el proletariado, esa clase obrera moderna que sólo puede vivir encontrando trabajo y que sólo encuentra trabajo en la medida en que éste alimenta a incremento el capital. El obrero, obligado a venderse a trozos, es una mercancía como otra cualquiera, sujeta, por tanto, a todos los cambios y modalidades de la concurrencia, a todas las fluctuaciones del mercado.

The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionizing the instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and with them the whole relations of society.

When a great social revolution shall have mastered the results of the bourgeois epoch, the market of the world and the modern powers of production, and subjected them to the common control of the most advanced peoples, then only will human progress cease to resemble that hideous, pagan idol, who would not drink the nectar but from the skulls of the slain.

This is what distinguishes the philosopher from the Christian. The Christian, in spite of logic, has only one incarnation of the Logos; the philosopher has never finished with incarnations.

We do not here refer to that literature which, in every great modern revolution, has always given voice to the demands of the proletariat, such as the writings of Babeuf and others.

If money, according to Augier, comes into the world with a congenital blood-stain on one cheek, capital comes dripping from head to foot, from every pore, with blood and dirt.