Background Image

...

The Abolition Of Religion As The Illusory Happiness Of The People Is The Demand For Their Real Happiness. To Call On Them To Give Up Their Illusions About Their Condition Is To Call On Them To Give Up A Condition That Requires Illusions. The Criticism Of Religion Is, Therefore, In Embryo, The Criticism Of That Vale Of Tears Of Which Religion Is The Halo.

-Karl Marx

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

The Abolition Of Religion

Karl Marx

...

The Abolition Of Religion As The Illusory Happiness Of The People Is The Demand For Their Real Happiness. To Call On Them To Give Up Their Illusions About Their Condition Is To Call On Them To Give Up A Condition That Requires Illusions. The Criticism Of Religion Is, Therefore, In Embryo, The Criticism Of That Vale Of Tears Of Which Religion Is The Halo.

Views: 9

Topic

More From Karl Marx

The Bureaucracy Is A Circle From Which One Cannot Escape. Its Hierarchy Is A Hierarchy Of Knowledge. The Top Entrusts The Understanding Of Detail To The Lower Levels, Whilst The Lower Levels Credit The Top With Understanding Of The General, And So All Are Mutually Deceived.

Men Make Their Own History

Communist Manifesto

There Are No Bigger Donkeys Than These Workers.... Look At Our 'craftsmen'; Sad That World History Should Be Be Made With Such People.

But The More These Conscious Illusions Of The Ruling Class Are Shown To Be False And The Less They Satisfy Common Sense, The More Dogmatically They Are Asserted And The More Deceitful, Moralizing And Spiritual Becomes The Language Of Established Society.

If Emancipation Of The Working Classes Requires Their Fraternal Conncurrence, How Are They To Fulfill That Great Mission With A Foreign Policy In Pursuit Of Criminal Designs, Playing Upon National Prejudices, And Squandering In Piratical Wars The People's Blood And Treasure? It Was Not The Wisdom Of The Ruling Classes, But The Heroic Resistance To Their Criminal Folly By The Working Classes Of England, That Saved The West Of Europe From Plunging Headlong Into An Infamous Crusade For The Propagation Of Slavery On The Other Side Of The Atlantic.

Private Property Has Made Us So Stupid And Partial That An Object Is Only Ours When We Have It, When It Exists For Us As Capital ... Thus All The Physical And Intellectual Senses Have Been Replaced By ... The Sense Of Having.

Money Is The Alienated Essence Of Man's Work And Existence; This Essence Dominates Him And He Worships It.

Communism... Is The Genuine Resolution Of The Antagonism Between Man And Nature And Between Man And Man; It Is The True Resolution Of The Conflict Between Existence And Essence, Objectification And Self-affirmation, Freedom And Necessity, Individual And Species. It Is The Riddle Of History Solved And Knows Itself As The Solution.

Since Labour Is Motion, Time Is Its Natural Measure.

What The Bourgeoisie Therefore Produces, Above All, Are Its Own Grave-diggers. Its Fall And The Victory Of The Proletariat Are Equally Inevitable.

Every One Knows That There Are No Real Forests In England.the Deer In The Parks Of The Great Are Demurely Domestic Cattle, Fat As London Alderman.

Nature Is Man's Inorganic Body -- That Is To Say, Nature Insofar As It Is Not The Human Body. Man Lives From Nature -- I.e., Nature Is His Body -- And He Must Maintain A Continuing Dialogue With It Is He Is Not To Die. To Say That Man's Physical And Mental Life Is Linked To Nature Simply Means That Nature Is Linked To Itself, For Man Is A Part Of Nature.

In Proportion As The Exploitation Of One Individual By Another Is Put An End To, The Exploitation Of One Nation By Another Will Also Be Put An End To. In Proportion As The Antagonism Between Classes Within The Nation Vanishes, The Hostility Of One Nation To Another Will Come To An End.

Once The Inner Connection Is Grasped, All Theoretical Belief In The Permanent Necessity Of Existing Conditions Collapses Before Their Collapse In Practice -- Letter To Ludwig Kugelmann (july 11, 1868)

The Alienation Of Man Thus Appeared As The Fundamental Evil Of Capitalist Society.

The Task Is Not Just To Understand The World But To Change It.

Surplus-value And The Rate Of Surplus-value Are... The Invisible Essence To Be Investigated, Whereas The Rate Of Profit And Hence The Form Of Surplus-value As Profit Are Visible Surface Phenomena

Scientific Truth Is Always Paradox, If Judged By Everyday Experience, Which Catches Only The Delusive Appearance Of Things.

Civil Servants And Priests, Soldiers And Ballet-dancers, Schoolmasters And Police Constables, Greek Museums And Gothic Steeples, Civil List And Services List -- The Common Seed Within Which All These Fabulous Beings Slumber In Embryo Is Taxation.

Criticism Has Plucked The Imaginary Flowers On The Chain Not In Order That Man Shall Continue To Bear That Chain Without Fantasy Or Consolation, But So That He Shall Throw Off The Chain And Pluck The Living Flower. The Criticism Of Religion Disillusions Man, So That He Will Think, Act, And Fashion His Reality Like A Man Who Has Discarded His Illusions And Regained His Senses, So That He Will Move Around Himself As His Own True Sun. Religion Is Only The Illusory Sun Which Revolves Around Man As Long As He Does Not Revolve Around Himself.

Accumulation Of Wealth At One Pole Is At The Same Time Accumulation Of Misery, Agony Of Toil, Slavery, Ignorance, Brutality, Mental Degradation, At The Opposite Pole

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!

Russia Is A Name Usurped By The Muscovites. They Are Not Slavs; They Do Not Belong To The Indo-germanic Race At All, They Are Des Intrus [intruders], Who Must Be Chased Back Across The Dnieper, Etc.

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.

Science And Democracy Are The Right And Left Hands Of What I'll Refer To As The Move From The Realm Of Necessity To The Realm Of Freedom.

Machines Were, It May Be Said, The Weapon Employed By The Capitalists To Quell The Revolt Of Specialized Labor.

Every Emancipation Is A Restoration Of The Human World And Of Human Relationships To A Man Himself.

We Will Hang The Capitalists With The Rope That They Sell Us.

As A Beast Of Toil An Ox Is Fixed Capital. If He Is Eaten, He No Longer Functions As An Instrument Of Labour, Nor As Fixed Capital Either.

Political Economy Regards The Proletarian Like A Horse, He Must Receive Enough To Enable Him To Work. It Does Not Consider Him, During The Time When He Is Not Working, As A Human Being. It Leaves This To Criminal Law, Doctors, Religion, Statistical Tables, Politics, And The Beadle.

Gold Is Now Money With Reference To All Other Commodities Only Because It Was Previously, With Reference To Them, A Simple Commodity.

Ideas Do Not Exist Separately From Language.

Communism Deprives No Man Of The Ability To Appropriate The Fruits Of His Labour. The Only Thing It Deprives Him Of Is The Ability To Enslave Others By Means Of Such Appropriations.

Very Well Then; Emancipation From Usury And Money, That Is, From Practical, Real Judaism, Would Constitute The Emancipation Of Our Time.

He Who Before Was The Money Owner, Now Strides In Front As Capitalist; The Possessor Of Labor-power Follows As His Laborer. The One With An Air Of Importance, Smirking, Intent On Business; The Other Hesitant, Like One Who Is Bringing His Own Hide To Market And Has Nothing To Expect But A Hiding.

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.

In Order To Arouse Sympathy, The Aristocracy Was Obliged To Lose Sight, Apparently, Of Its Own Interests, And To Formulate Its Indictment Against The Bourgeoisie In The Interest Of The Exploited Working Class Alone. Thus, The Aristocracy Took Their Revenge By Singing Lampoons On Their New Masters And Whispering In His Ears Sinister Prophesies Of Coming Catastrophe.

Go On, Get Out - Last Words Are For Fools Who Haven't Said Enough. To His Housekeeper, Who Urged Him To Tell Her His Last Words So She Could Write Them Down For Posterity.

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.

Every Beginning Is Difficult, Holds In All Sciences.

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.

When The Sufferers Learn To Think, Then The Thinkers Will Learn To Suffer.

The Imaginary Flowers Of Religion Adorn Man's Chains. Man Must Throw Off The Flowers, And Also The Chains.

Bourgeois Society Ought Long Ago To Have Gone To The Dogs Through Sheer Idleness; For Those Of Its Members Who Work, Acquire Nothing, And Those Who Acquire Anything, Do Not Work.

The Need Of A Constantly Expanding Market For Its Products Chases The Bourgeoisie Over The Entire Surface Of The Globe. It Must Nestle Everywhere, Settle Everywhere, Establish Connections Everywhere. The Bourgeoisie Has, Through Its Exploitation Of The World Market, Given A Cosmopolitan Character To Production And Consumption In Every Country. To The Great Chagrin Of Reactionaries, It Has Drawn From Under The Feet Of Industry The National Ground On Which It Stood.

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.

Taxes Are The Source Of Life For The Bureaucracy, The Army And The Court, In Short, For The Whole Apparatus Of The Executive Power. Strong Government And Heavy Taxes Are Identical.

In The Eyes Of Dialectical Philosophy, Nothing Is Established For All Times, Nothing Is Absolute Or Sacred.

There Is No Royal Road To Science, And Only Those Who Do Not Dread The Fatiguing Climb Of Its Steep Paths Have A Chance Of Gaining Its Luminous Summits. (preface To The French Edition).

Moments Are The Elements Of Profit

Wages Are Determined By The Bitter Struggle Between Capitalist And Worker.

In Communist Society, Where Nobody Has One Exclusive Sphere Of Activity But Each Can Become Accomplished In Any Branch He Wishes, Society Regulates The General Production And Thus Makes It Possible For Me To Do One Thing Today And Another Tomorrow, To Hunt In The Morning, Fish In The Afternoon, Rear Cattle In The Evening, Criticize After Dinner, Just As I Have A Mind, Without Ever Becoming Hunter, Fisherman, Shepherd Or Critic.

But Capitalist Production Begets,with The Inexorability Of A Law Of Nature,its Own Negation. It Is The Negation Of Negation.

Capital Brings Forth Living Offspring, Or At The Least, Lays The Golden Eggs.

As In Private Life One Differentiates Between What A Man Thinks And Says Of Himself And What He Really Is And Does, So In Historical Struggles One Must Still More Distinguish The Language And The Imaginary Aspirations Of Parties From Their Real Organism And Their Real Interests, Their Conception Of Themselves From Their Reality.

The Individual Produces An Object And, By Consuming It, Returns To Himself, But Returns As A Productive And Self Reproducing Individual. Consumption Thus Appears As A Moment Of Production.

There Is A Physical Relation Between Physical Things. But It Is Different With Commodities.

Democracy Is The Road To Socialism.

As, In Religion, Man Is Governed By The Products Of His Own Brain, So In Capitalistic Production, He Is Governed By The Products Of His Own Hand.

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.

Division Of Labor

Communism Is The Riddle Of History Solved, And It Knows Itself To Be This Solution.

Communist Manifesto

Revolutions Are The Locomotives Of History.

History Does Nothing; It Does Not Possess Immense Riches, It Does Not Fight Battles. It Is Men, Real, Living, Who Do All This.

Without The Presence Of Class Warfare, Trade Unions Would Be Hard Put To Justfy Their Existence.

Parliamentary Cretinism: That Peculiar Malady Which Since 1848 Has Raged All Over The Continent, Which Holds Those Infected By It Fast In An Imaginary World And Robs Them Of All Sense, All Memory, All Understanding Of The Rude External World.

The Burgeoisie, By The Rapid Improvement Of All Instruments Of Production, By The Immensely Facilitated Means Of Communication, Draws All Nations Into Civilization.

Hence Money May Be Dirt, Although Dirt Is Not Money.

You Are Horrified At Our Intending To Do Away With Private Property. But In Your Existing Society, Private Property Is Already Done Away With For Nine Tenths Of The Population; Its Existence For The Few Is Solely Due To Its Non-existence In The Hands Of Those Nine Tenths. You Reproach Us, Therefore, With Intending To Do Away With A Form Of Property, The Necessary Condition For Whose Existence Is The Non-existence Of Any Property For The Immense Majority Of Society.

2 Is A Proletariat Prime, But 4, 6 And 8 Are Also Composite Proletariats. Composites Of The World Unite; You Have Nothing To Lose But Your Chains!

Nothing To Lose

Social Progress Can Be Measured Exactly By The Social Position Of The Fair Sex.

Be Aware That The Reward For Labour, And Quantity Of Labour, Are Quite Disparate Things.

The Last Capitalist We Hang Shall Be The One Who Sold Us The Rope.

Religion Is The Opium Of The People Translated From The German Die Religion ... Ist Das Opium Des Volkessometimes Misquoted As Opiate Of The People.

If Production Be Capitalistic In Form, So, Too, Will Be Reproduction.

They Don't Know It, But They Are Doing It.

I Pre-suppose, Of Course, A Reader Who Is Willing To Learn Something New And Therefore To Think For Himself.

The Essence Of The Free Press Is The Reliable, Reasonable And Moral Nature Of Freedom.

The Past Lies Like A Nightmare Upon The Present.

I Do Not Like Money, Money Is The Reason We Fight.

Wherever The Want Of Clothing Forced Them To It, The Human Race Made Clothes For Thousands Of Years, Without A Single Man Becoming A Tailor.

The Method Of Production Of The Material Things Of Life Generally Determines The Social, Political And Spiritual Currents Of Life.

And As For The Jews, Who Since The Emancipation Of Their Sect Have Everywhere Put Themselves, At Least In The Person Of Their Eminent Representatives, At The Head Of The Counter-revolution -- What Awaits Them?

...the Very Cannibalism Of The Counterrevolution Will Convince The Nations That There Is Only One Way In Which The Murderous Death Agonies Of The Old Society And The Bloody Birth Throes Of The New Society Can Be Shortened, Simplified And Concentrated, And That Way Is Revolutionary Terror.

The Capitalist Cannot Store Labour-power In Warehouses After He Has Bought It, As He May Do With The Raw Material.

Necessity Is Blind Until It Becomes Conscious. Freedom Is The Consciousness Of Necessity.

Do Not Be Deluded By The Abstract Word Freedom. Whose Freedom? Not The Freedom Of One Individual In Relation To Another, But Freedom Of Capital To Crush The Worker.

One Capitalist Always Kills Many.

What The Working Man Sells Is Not Directly His Labor, But His Laboring Power, The Temporary Disposal Of Which He Makes Over To The Capitalist. This Is So Much The Case That I Do Not Know Whether By The English Law, But Certainly By Some Continental Laws, The Maximum Time Is Fixed For Which A Man Is Allowed To Sell His Laboring Power. If Allowed To Do So For Any Indefinite Period Whatever, Slavery Would Be Immediately Restored. Such A Sale, If It Comprised His Lifetime, For Example, Would Make Him At Once The Lifelong Slave Of His Employer.

It Would Perhaps Be As Well If Things Were To Remain Quiet For A Few Years Yet, So That All This 1848 Democracy Has Time To Rot Away.

Democracies Have

Although Gold And Silver Are Not By Nature Money, Money Is By Nature Gold And Silver.

Is It A Misfortune That Magnificent California Was Seized From The Lazy Mexicans Who Did Not Know What To Do With It.

All Science Would Be Superfluous If The Outward Appearance And The Essence Of Things Directly Coincided.

It's Possible That I Shall Make An Ass Of Myself. But In That Case One Can Always Get Out Of It With A Little Dialectic. I Have, Of Course, So Worded My Proposition As To Be Right Either Way.

If We Have Chosen The Position In Life In Which We Can Most Of All Work For Mankind, No Burdens Can Bow Us Down, Because They Are Sacrifices For The Benefit Of All; Then We Shall Experience No Petty, Limited, Selfish Joy, But Our Happiness Will Belong To Millions, Our Deeds Will Live On Quietly But Perpetually At Work, And Over Our Ashes Will Be Shed The Hot Tears Of Noble People.

It Is A Bad Thing To Perform Menial Duties Even For The Sake Of Freedom; To Fight With Pinpricks, Instead Of With Clubs. I Have Become Tired Of Hypocrisy, Stupidity, Gross Arbitrariness, And Of Our Bowing And Scraping, Dodging, And Hair-splitting Over Words. Consequently, The Government Has Given Me Back My Freedom.

Private Property Has Made Us So Stupid And One-sided That An Object Is Only Ours When We Have It

Anyone Wanting A New House Picks One From Among Those Built On Speculation Or Still In Process Of Construction. The Builder No Longer Works For His Customers But For The Market.

As The Variable Capital Always Stays In The Hands Of The Capitalist In Some Form Or Other, It Cannot Be Claimed In Any Way That It Converts Itself Into Revenue For Anyone .

The Tories In England Had Long Imagined That They Were Enthusiastic About The Monarchy, The Church And Beauties Of The Old English Constitution, Until The Day Of Danger Wrung From Them The Confession That They Are Enthusiastic Only About Rent.

Darwin Has Interested Us In The History Of Nature's Technology.

Constant Labor Of One Uniform Kind Destroys The Intensity And Flow Of A Man's Animal Spirits, Which Find Recreation And Delight In Mere Change Of Activity.

All Social Rules And All Relations Between Individuals Are Eroded By A Cash Economy, Avarice Drags Pluto Himself Out Of The Bowels Of The Earth.

Luxury Is The Opposite Of The Naturally Necessary.

There Are No Circumstances Imaginable, Not Even Victory, Under Which The Proletariat Should Give Up Its Possession Of Arms.

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.

Philosophy Is To Science As Masturbation Is To Sex.

The Object Of Art Like Every Other Product Creates A Public Which Is Sensitive To Art And Enjoys Beauty.

The Rich Will Do Anything For The Poor But Get Off Their Backs.

So Long As The Product Is Sold, Everything Is Taking Its Regular Course From The Standpoint Of The Capitalist Producer.

In Place Of The Old Bourgeois Society, With Its Classes And Class Antagonisms, We Shall Have An Association In Which The Free Development Of Each Is The Condition For The Free Development Of All.

Those Dogs Of Democrats And Liberal Riff-raff Will See That We're The Only Chaps Who Haven't Been Stultified By The Ghastly Period Of Peace.

The Unity Is Brought About By Force .

Men Make Their Own History, But They Do Not Make It Just As They Please; They Do Not Make It Under Circumstances Chosen By Themselves, But Under Circumstances Directly Encountered, Given And Transmitted From The Past. The Tradition Of All The Dead Generations Weighs Like A Nightmare On The Brain Of The Living.

Beauty Is The Main Positive Form Of The Aesthetic Assimilation Of Reality, In Which Aesthetic Ideal Finds It Direct Expression.

All I Know Is That I Am Not A Marxist.

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.

The English Have All The Material Requisites For The Revolution. What They Lack Is The Spirit Of Generalization And Revolutionary Ardour.

Greek Philosophy Seems To Have Met With Something With Which A Good Tragedy Is Not Supposed To Meet, Namely, A Dull Ending.

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.

It Appears Then, That Capitalist Production Comprises Conditions Independent Of Good Or Bad Will, Conditions Which Permit The Working-class To Enjoy That Relative Prosperity Only Momentarily, And At That Always Only As The Harbinger Of A Coming Crisis.

Life Is Not Determined By Consciousness, But Consciousness By Life.

In The National Struggles Of The Proletarians Of The Different Countries, They Point Out And Bring To The Front The Common Interest Of The Entire Proletariat, Independently Of All Nationality.

In Proportion As Capital Accumulates, The Lot Of The Laborer, Be His Payment High Or Low, Must Grow Worse.

Be Careful To Trust A Person Who Does Not Like Wine.

All History Is Nothing But A Continuous Transformation Of Human Nature.

The Bureaucracy Takes Itself To Be The Ultimate Purpose Of The State

Value, Therefore, Does Not Stalk About With A Label Describing What It Is.

To Destroy Christianity, We Must First Destroy The British Empire.

With Disdain I Will Throw My Gauntlet Full In The Fact Of The World And See The Collapse Of This Pygmy Giant. Then Will I Wander God-like And Victorious Through The Ruins Of The World. And Giving My Words An Active Force, I Will Feel Equal To The Creator.

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.

In Every Stockjobbing Swindle Every One Knows That Some Time Or Other The Crash Must Come, But Every One Hopes That It May Fall On The Head Of His Neighbor, After He Himself Has Caught The Shower Of Gold And Placed It In Safety.

Social Reforms Are Never Carried Out By The Weakness Of The Strong; But Always By The Strength Of The Weak.

The Leading Princes Are The Most Servile Tools Of English Despotism. . . . The Native Princes Are The Stronghold Of The Present Abominable English System.

If One Wants To Be An Ox One Can Easily Turn One's Back On Hum Suffering And Look After One's Own Skin.

Perseus Wore A Magic Cap That The Monsters He Hunted Down Might Not See Him. We Draw The Magic Cap Down Over Eyes And Ears As A Make-believe That There Are No Monsters.

Although Usury Is Itself A Form Of Credit In Its Bourgeoisified Form, The Form Adapted To Capital , In Its Pre-bourgeois Form It Is Rather The Expression Of The Lack Of Credit .

England Has To Fulfill A Double Mission In India: One Destructive, The Other Regenerating - The Annihilation Of Old Asiatic Society, And The Laying The Material Foundations Of Western Society In Asia... When A Great Social Revolution Shall Have Mastered The Results Of The Bourgeois Epoch... 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.

The Writer May Very Well Serve A Movement Of History As Its Mouthpiece, But He Cannot Of Course Create It.

The History Of All Previous Societies Has Been The History Of Class Struggles.

You Will Have To Go Through 15, 20, 50 Years Of Civil Wars And National Struggles Not Only To Bring About A Change In Society But Also To Change Yourselves, And Prepare Yourselves For The Exercise Of Political Power.

These Numerous Points At Which Money Is Withdrawn From Circulation And Accumulated In Numerous Individual Hoards Or Potential Money-capitals Appears As So Many Obstacles To Circulation, Because They Immobilise The Money And Deprive It Of Its Capacity To Circulate For A Certain Time.

...the Communists Everywhere Support Every Revolutionary Movement Against The Existing Social And Political Order Of Things... They Openly Declare That Their Ends Can Be Attained Only By The Forcible Overthrow Of All Existing Social Conditions.

If Money Is The Bond Binding Me To Human Life, Binding Society To Me, Binding Me And Nature And Man, Is Not Money The Bond Of All Bonds? Can It Not Dissolve And Bind All Ties? Is It Not, Therefore, The Universal Agent Of Separation?

From Each According To His Abilities, To Each According To His Needs.

The Proletarians Have Nothing To Loose But Their Chains. They Have A World To Win.

Crack-brained Meddling By The Authorities [can] Aggravate An Existing Crisis.

Work Is External To The Worker. . . . It Is Not Part Of His Nature; Consequently He Does Not Fulfill Himself In His Work But Denies Himself. . . . The Worker Therefore Feels Himself At Home Only During His Leisure Time, Whereas At Work He Feels Homeless.

The Working Class Is Revolutionary Or It Is Nothing.

In Short, Competition Has To Shoulder The Responsibility Of Explaining All The Meaningless Ideas Of The Economists, Whereas It Should Rather Be The Economists Who Explain Competition.

Labour Is ... Not The Only Source Of Material Wealth, I.e, Of The Use-values It Produces. As William Petty Says, Labour Is The Father Of Material Wealth, The Earth Is Its Mother.

In A Word, The Free Trade System Hastens The Social Revolution. It Is In This Revolutionary Sense Alone, Gentlemen, That I Vote In Favor Of Free Trade.

There Is Something In Human History Like Retribution; And It Is A Rule Of Historical Retribution That Its Instrument Be Forged Not By The Offended, But By The Offender Himself. The First Blow Dealt To The French Monarchy Proceeded From The Nobility, Not From The Peasants. The Indian Revolt Does Not Commence With The Ryots, Tortured, Dishonoured And Stripped Naked By The British, But With The Sepoys, Clad, Fed And Petted, Fatted And Pampered By Them.

The More Powerful The Work, The More Powerless The Worker.

Nothing Can Have Value Without Being An Object Of Utility.

The Executive Of The Modern State Is But A Committee For Managing The Common Affairs Of The Whole Bourgeoisie.

Man Makes Religion, Religion Does Not Make Man

Criticism Of Religion

A Heavy Progressive Or Graduated Income Tax.

Darwin's Book Is Very Important And Serves Me As A Basis In Natural Science For The Class Struggle In History. One Has To Put Up With The Crude English Method Of Development, Of Course. Despite All Deficiencies Not Only Is The Death-blow Dealt Here For The First Time To 'teleology' In The Natural Sciences, But Their Rational Meaning Is Empirically Explained.

Change The Economic Base And You Will Change Human Beings.

It Is Not The Consciousness Of Men That Determines Their Being, But, On The Contrary, Their Social Being That Determines Their Consciousness.

Communist Manifesto

As Individuals Express Their Life, So They Are. What They Are, Therefore, Coincides With Their Production, Both With What They Produce And With How They Produce. The Nature Of Individuals Thus Depends On The Material Conditions Determining Their Production.

The Working Men Have No Country. We Cannot Take Away From Them What They Have Not Got

[the Career A Young Man Should Choose Should Be] One That Is Most Consonant With Our Dignity, One That Is Based On Ideas Of Whose Truth We Are Wholly Convinced, One That Offers Us Largest Scope In Working For Humanity And Approaching That General Goal Towards Which Each Profession Offers Only One Of The Means: The Goal Of Perfection ... If He Works Only For Himself He Can Become A Famous Scholar, A Great Sage, An Excellent Imaginative Writer [ Dichter ], But Never A Perfected, A Truly Great Man.

...it Happens That Society Is Saved As Often As The Circle Of Its Ruling Class Is Narrowed, As Often As A More Exclusive Interest Asserts Itself Over The General. Every Demand For The Most Simple Bourgeois Financial Reform, For The Most Ordinary Liberalism, For The Most Commonplace Republicanism, For The Flattest Democracy Is Forthwith Punished As An Assault Upon Society And Is Branded As Socialism.

May The Devil Take These Peoples Movements, Especially When They Are 'peaceful'.

The Directing Motive, The End And Aim Of Capitalist Production, Is To Extract The Greatest Possible Amount Of Surplus Value, And Consequently To Exploit Labor-power To The Greatest Possible Extent.

Religious Distress Is At The Same Time The Expression Of The Real Distress And Also The Protest Against Real Distress. Religion Is The Sigh Of The Oppressed Creature, The Heart Of A Heartless World, Just As It Is The Spirit Of The Spiritless Condition. It Is The Opium Of The People.

Philosophy Studies The World, But The Point Is To Change It.

Capital Is Reckless Of The Health Or Length Of Life Of The Laborer, Unless Under Compulsion From Society.

In Proportion Therefore, As The Repulsiveness Of The Work Increases, The Wage Decreases.

Communist Manifesto

Labor In The White Skin Can Never Free Itself As Long As Labor In The Black Skin Is Branded.

The French Need A Thrashing. If The Prussians Win, The Centralization Of State Power Will Be Useful For The Centralization Of The German Working Class. German Predominance Would Also Transfer The Center Of Gravity Of The Workers' Movement In Western Europe From France To Germany, And One Has Only To Compare The Movement In The Two Countries From 1866 Until Now To See That The German Working Class Is Superior To The French Both Theoretically And Organizationally.

Follow Your Own Path, No Matter What People Say.

The Way People Get Their Living Determines Their Social Outlook.

The Unity Of The Bourgeoisie Can Be Shaken Only By The Unity Of The Proletariat.

Since Only What Is Material Is Perceptible, Knowable, Nothing Is Known Of The Existence Of God.

Existence Of God

A Spectre Is Haunting Europe-the Spectre Of Communism. All The Powers Of Old Europe Have Entered Into Holy Alliance To Exorcise This Spectre: Pope And Czar, Metternich And Guizot, French Radicals And German Police-spies. Where Is The Party In Opposition That Has Not Been Decried As Communistic By Its Opponents In Power? Where The Opposition That Has Not Hurled Back The Branding Reproach Of Communism, Against The More Advanced Opposition Parties, As Well As Against Its Reactionary Adversaries?

The First Premise Of All Human History Is, Of Course, The Existence Of Living Human Individuals. Thus The First Fact To Be Established Is The Physical Organisation Of These Individuals And Their Consequent Relation To The Rest Of Nature.

Catch A Man A Fish, And You Can Sell It To Him. Teach A Man To Fish, And You Ruin A Wonderful Business Opportunity.

The Economic Concept Of Value Does Not Occur In Antiquity .

The Abolition Of Religion As The Illusory Happiness Of The People Is The Demand For Their Real Happiness. To Call On Them To Give Up Their Illusions About Their Condition Is To Call On Them To Give Up A Condition That Requires Illusions. The Criticism Of Religion Is, Therefore, In Embryo, The Criticism Of That Vale Of Tears Of Which Religion Is The Halo.

History Calls Those Men The Greatest Who Have Ennobled Themselves By Working For The Common Good; Experience Acclaims As Happiest The Man Who Has Made The Greatest Number Of People Happy.

The Aggregate Capital Appears As The Capital Stock Of All Individual Capitalists Combined. This Joint Stock Company Has In Common With Many Other Stock Companies That Everyone Knows What He Puts In, But Not What He Will Get Out Of It.

Capitalist Agricultural Production Prevents The Return To The Soil Of Its Elements Consumed By Man In The Form Of Food And Clothing; It Therefore Violates The Conditions Necessary To Lasting Fertility Of The Soil. By This Action It Destroys At The Same Time The Health Of The Town Labourer And The Intellectual Life Of The Rural Labourer.

Only In Community With Others Has Each Individual The Means Of Cultivating His Gifts In All Directions; Only In The Community, Therefore, Is Personal Freedom Possible.

The Will Of The Capitalist Is Certainly To Take As Much As Possible. What We Have To Do Is Not To Talk About His Will, But To Enquire About His Power, The Limits Of That Power, And The Character Of Those Limits.

Nothing Is Easier Than To Give Christian Asceticism A Socialist Tinge.

Religion Is The Impotence Of The Human Mind To Deal With Occurrences It Cannot Understand.

In Capitalist Society Spare Time Is Acquired For One Class By Converting The Whole Life-time Of The Masses Into Labour-time.

Capitalist Production Does Not Exist At All Without Foreign Commerce.

We Know That Violent Measures Against Religion Are Nonsense; But This Is An Opinion: As Socialism Grows, Religion Will Disappear. Its Disappearance Must Be Done By Social Development, In Which Education Must Play A Part.

In Reality, The Labourer Belongs To Capital Before He Has Sold Himself To Capital.

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.

The Capitalist Mode Of Production And Accumulation, And Therefore Capitalist Private Property, Have For Their Fundamental Condition The Annihilation Of Self-earned Private Property: In Other Words, The Expropriation Of The Labourer.

Labor, Being Itself A Commodity, Is Measured As Such By The Labor Time Needed To Produce The Labor-commodity. And What Is Needed To Produce This Labor-commodity? Just Enough Labor Time To Produce The Objects Indispensable To The Constant Maintenance Of Labor, That Is, To Keep The Worker Alive And In A Condition To Propagate His Race. The Natural Price Of Labor Is No Other Than The Wage Minimum.

All That We Want To Do Away With Is The Miserable Character Of This Appropriation, Under Which The Labourer Lives Merely To Increase Capital , And Allowed To Live Only So Far As The Interest To The Ruling Class Requires It.

Language Is As Old As Consciousness, Language Is Practical, Real Consciousness That Exists For Other Men As Well, And Only Therefore Does It Also Exist For Me; Language, Like Consciousness, Only Arises From The Need, The Necessity, Of Intercourse With Other Men.

Usury Lives In The Pores Of Production, As It Were, Just As The Gods Of Epicurus Lived In The Space Between The Worlds.

When The Train Of History Hits A Curve, The Intellectuals Fall Off.

In The Various Stages Of Development Which The Struggle Of Working Class Against The Bourgeoisie Has To Pass Through, They Always And Everywhere Represent The Interests Of The Movement As A Whole.

Trending Author

Richard Chamberlain

Jonathan Larson

Category