Quotes by "Karl Marx"

I am a machine condemned to devour books.

The less you eat, drink and buy books; the less you go to the theatre, the dance hall, the public house; the less you think, love, theorise, sing, paint, fence, etc., the more you save – the greater becomes your treasure which neither moths nor rust will devour – your capital. The less you are, the less you express your own life, the more you have, i.e., the greater is your alienated life, the greater is the store of your estranged being.

The education of all children, from the moment that they can get along without a mother's care, shall be in state institutions.

The theory of Communism may be summed up in one sentence: Abolish all private property.

The first requisite for the happiness of the people is the abolition of religion.

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.

The meaning of peace is the absence of opposition to socialism.

From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Reason has always existed, but not always in a reasonable form.

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.

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 only antidote to mental suffering is physical pain.

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.

The rich will do anything for the poor but get off their backs.

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