Quotes By Karl Marx

Experience praises the most happy the one who made the most people happy.

First fact that labour is external to the worker, i.e., it does not belong to his intrinsic nature; that in his work, therefore he does not affirm himself but denies himself, does not feel content but unhappy, does not develop freely his physical and mental energy but mortifies his body and his mind. The worker therefore only feels himself outside his work, and in his work feels outside himself.

History does nothing; it does not possess immense riches, it does not fight battles. It is men, real, living, who do all this.

Society is undergoing a silent revolution, which must be submitted to, and which takes no more notice of the human existences it breaks down than an earthquake regards the houses it subverts. The classes and the races, too weak to master the new conditions of life, must give way.

The discovery of gold and silver in America, the extirpation, enslavement and entombment in mines of the aboriginal population, the turning of Africa into a warren for the commercial hunting of black-skins, signalised the rosy dawn of the era of capitalist production.

The social revolution...cannot draw its poetry from the past, but only from the future. It cannot begin with itself before it has stripped itself of all superstitions concerning the past.

Since only what is material is perceptible, knowable, nothing is known of the existence of God.

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 traditions of the dead generations weigh like a nightmare upon the living.

Be careful to trust a person who does not like wine.

When the labourer co-operates systematically with others, he strips off the fetters of his individuality, and develops the capabilities of his species.

The economic concept of value does not occur in antiquity.

The religious world is but a reflex of the real world.

Beauty is the main positive form of the aesthetic assimilation of reality, in which aesthetic ideal finds it direct expression.

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.

Life is not determined by consciousness, but consciousness by life.

The most violent, mean and malignant passions of the human breast, the Furies of private interest.

Exchange value forms the substance of money, and exchange value is wealth.

Scientific truth is always paradox, if judged by everyday experience, which catches only the delusive appearance of things.

An increase in the productivity of labour means nothing more than that the same capital creates the same value with less labour, or that less labour creates the same product with more capital.