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Favourite quotes (21448)

“But if the labourers could live on air they could not be bought at any price.”

Karl Marx (1818–1883) German philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist and revolutionary socialist

Vol. I, Ch. 24, Section 4, pg. 657.
(Buch I) (1867)

“Prometheus is the most eminent saint and martyr in the philosophical calendar.”

Karl Marx book The Difference Between the Democritean and Epicurean Philosophy of Nature

Prometheus ist der vornehmste Heilige und Märtyrer im philosophischen Kalender.
The Difference Between the Democritean and Epicurean Philosophy of Nature (1841)

“Everyone has a goal which appears to be great, at least to himself, and is great when deepest conviction, the innermost voice of the heart, pronounces it great. … This voice, however, is easily drowned out, and what we thought to be inspiration may have been created by the fleeting moment and again perhaps destroyed by it. … We must seriously ask ourselves, therefore, whether we are really inspired about a vocation, whether an inner voice approves of it, or whether the inspiration was a deception, whether that which we took as the Deity’s calling to us was self-deceit. But how else could we recognize this except by searching for the source of our inspiration?”

Karl Marx (1818–1883) German philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist and revolutionary socialist

Writings of the Young Marx on Philosophy and Society, L. Easton, trans. (1967), p. 36
Reflections of a Youth on Choosing an Occupation (1835)

“In every stock-jobbing swindle everyone knows that some time or other the crash must come, but every one hopes that it may fall on the head of his neighbour, after he himself has caught the shower of gold and placed it in safety.”

Karl Marx (1818–1883) German philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist and revolutionary socialist

Vol. I, Ch. 10, Section 5, pg. 296.
(Buch I) (1867)

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

Karl Marx (1818–1883) German philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist and revolutionary socialist

Grundrisse (1857-1858)
Source: Notebook II, The Chapter on Money, p. 141.

“[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.”

Karl Marx (1818–1883) German philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist and revolutionary socialist

in Karl Marx and World Literature (1976) by S. S. Prawer, p. 2.
Reflections of a Youth on Choosing an Occupation (1835)

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

Karl Marx (1818–1883) German philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist and revolutionary socialist

Author's prefaces to the First Edition.
(Buch I) (1867)

“The whole mystery of commodities, all the magic and necromancy that surrounds the products of labor as long as they take the form of commodities, vanishes therefore, so soon as we come to other forms of production.”

Karl Marx (1818–1883) German philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist and revolutionary socialist

Source: (Buch I) (1867) Vol. I, ch.1, section 4.

“Under no pretext should arms and ammunition be surrendered; any attempt to disarm the workers must be frustrated, by force if necessary.”

Karl Marx (1818–1883) German philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist and revolutionary socialist

Address of the Central Committee to the Communist League https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/communist-league/1850-ad1.htm in London, March 1850

“It goes without saying that the normal durability of fixed capital is calculated on the supposition that all the conditions under which it can perform its functions normally during that time are fulfilled, just as we assume, in placing a mans life at 30 years on the average, that he will wash himself.”

Karl Marx book Das Kapital

Source: Das Kapital (Buch II) (1893)

“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.”

Karl Marx (1818–1883) German philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist and revolutionary socialist

Grundrisse (1857-1858)
Source: Introduction, p. 14.

“What chance has Vulcan against Roberts & Co., Jupiter against the lightning-rod and Hermes against the Credit Mobilier? All mythology overcomes and dominates and shapes the forces of nature in the imagination and by the imagination; it therefore vanishes with the advent of real mastery over them.”

Karl Marx (1818–1883) German philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist and revolutionary socialist

Grundrisse (1857-1858)
Source: Introduction, p. 30.

“Under the ideal measure of values there lurks the hard cash.”

Karl Marx (1818–1883) German philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist and revolutionary socialist

Vol. I, Ch. 3, Section 1, pg. 116.
(Buch I) (1867)

“Supply and demand constantly determine the prices of commodities; never balance, or only coincidentally; but the cost of production, for its part, determines the oscillations of supply and demand.”

Karl Marx (1818–1883) German philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist and revolutionary socialist

Grundrisse (1857-1858)
Source: Notebook I, The Chapter on Money, p. 58.

“The object of art — like every other product — creates a public which is sensitive to art and enjoys beauty.”

Karl Marx (1818–1883) German philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist and revolutionary socialist

Grundrisse (1857-1858)
Source: Introduction, p. 12.

“In a social order dominated by capitalist production even the non-capitalist producer is gripped by capitalist conceptions.”

Karl Marx book Das Kapital

Vol. III, Ch. I, Cost Price and Profit, p. 39.
Das Kapital (Buch III) (1894)

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

Karl Marx (1818–1883) German philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist and revolutionary socialist

The Criticism of the Gotha Program (1875)
Variant: Variant translation: From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.

“As for large landed property, its defenders have always, sophistically, identified the economic advantages offered by large-scale agriculture with large-scale landed property, as if it were not precisely as a result of the abolition of property that this advantage, for one thing, would receive its greatest possible extension, and, for another, only then would be of social benefit.”

Karl Marx book Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844

Rent of Land, p. 66.
Paris Manuscripts (1844)

“When we have weighed everything, and when our relations in life permit us to choose any given position, we may take that one which guarantees us the greatest dignity, which is based on ideas of whose truth we are completely convinced, which offers the largest field to work for mankind and approach the universal goal for which every position is only a means: perfection.”

Karl Marx (1818–1883) German philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist and revolutionary socialist

Writings of the Young Marx on Philosophy and Society, L. Easton, trans. (1967), p. 38
Reflections of a Youth on Choosing an Occupation (1835)

“Language comes into being, like consciousness, from the basic need, from the scantiest intercourse with other human.”

Karl Marx (1818–1883) German philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist and revolutionary socialist

Source: The German Ideology (1845-1846), Vol. III, 30.