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Favourite quotes (21448)

“Capitalist production, therefore, develops technology, and the combining together of various processes into a social whole, only by sapping the original sources of all wealth — the soil and the labourer.”

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

Vol. I, Ch. 15 (last sentence), pg. 556.
(Buch I) (1867)

“The only possible solution which will preserve Germany’s honor and Germany’s interest is, we repeat, a war with Russia.”

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

Marx-Engels Gesamt-Ausgabe, Erste Abteilung, Volume 7, March to December 1848, p. 304. Leopold Schwartzschild, Karl Marx: The Red Prussian, New York: NY, The Universal Library, Grosset & Dunlap, 1947, p. 202

“When we have chosen the vocation in which we can contribute most to humanity, burdens cannot bend us because they are only sacrifices for all. Then we experience no meager, limited, egotistic joy, but our happiness belongs to millions, our deeds live on quietly but eternally effective, and glowing tears of noble men will fall on our ashes.”

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. 39
Reflections of a Youth on Choosing an Occupation (1835)

“Capitals accumulate faster than the population; thus wages; thus population; thus grain prices; thus the difficulty of production and hence the exchange values.”

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

Grundrisse (1857-1858)
Source: Notebook III, The Chapter on Capital, p. 271.

“A commodity appears, at first sight, a very trivial thing, and easily understood. Its analysis shows that it is, in reality, a very queer thing, abounding in metaphysical subtleties and theological niceties.”

Karl Marx book Das Kapital

Vol. I, Ch. 1, Section 4, pg. 81.
Das Kapital (Buch I) (1867)

“A class of labourers, who live only so long as they find work, and who find work only so long as their labour increase capital. These labourers, who must sell themselves piecemeal, are a commodity, like every other article of commerce, and are consequently exposed to all the vicissitudes of competition, to all the fluctuations of the market.”

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

Section 1, paragraph 30, lines 3-8.
The Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848)

“The commodity is first of all, an external object, a thing which through its qualities satisfies human needs of whatever kind. The nature of these needs, whether they arise, for example, from the stomach, or the imagination, makes no difference. Nor does it matter here how the thing satisfies man's need, whether directly as a means of subsistence, i. e. an object of consumption, or indirectly as a means of production”

Karl Marx book Das Kapital

Vol. I, Ch. 1, Section 1, pg. 41.
Das Kapital (Buch I) (1867)

“Nor is it the irrationality of the form which is taken as characteristic. On the contrary, one overlooks the irrational.”

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

Vol. II, Ch. I, p. 30.
(Buch II) (1893)

“He becomes an appendage of the machine, and it is only the most simple, most monotonous, and most easily acquired knack, that is required of him. Hence, the cost of production of a workman is restricted, almost entirely, to the means of subsistence that he requires for his maintenance, and for the propagation of his race.”

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

Section 1, paragraph 31, lines 3-8.
The Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848)

“What strikes one here above all is the crudely empirical conception of profit derived from the outlook of the ordinary capitalist, which wholly contradicts the better esoteric understanding of Adam Smith.”

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

Vol. II, Ch. X, p. 202.
(Buch II) (1893)

“A spider conducts operations that resemble those of a weaver, and a bee puts to shame many an architect in the construction of her cells. But what distinguishes the worst of architects from the best of bees is this, that the architect raises his structure in imagination before he erects it in reality.”

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

Vol. I, Ch. 7, pg. 198.
(Buch I) (1867)

“In capitalist society spare time is acquired for one class by converting the whole life-time of the masses into labour-time.”

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

Vol. I, Ch. 17, Section IV, pg. 581.
(Buch I) (1867)

“The country that is more developed industrially only shows, to the less developed, the image of its own future.”

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

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

“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.”

Karl Marx book Das Kapital

Vol. III, Ch. L, Illusions Created by Competition, p. 866.
Das Kapital (Buch III) (1894)

“A house sold by A to B does not wander from one place to another, although it circulates as a commodity.”

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

Vol. II, Ch. VI, p. 152.
(Buch II) (1893)

“Long hours of labour seem to be the secret of the rational and healthful processes, which are to raise the condition of the labourer by an improvement of his mental and moral powers and to make a rational consumer out of him.”

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

Vol. II, Ch. XXI, p. 520.
(Buch II) (1893)

“Each piece of money is a mere coin, or means of circulation, only so long as it actually circulates.”

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

Vol. I, Ch. 3, Section 2(c), pg. 145.
(Buch I) (1867)

“The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.”

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

Source: The Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848), Section 1, paragraph 1, lines 1-2.

“Unlimited exploitation of cheap labour-power is the sole foundation of their power to compete.”

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

Vol. I, Ch. 15, Section 8, pg. 520.
(Buch I) (1867)

“Nature builds no machines, no locomotives, railways, electric telegraphs, self-acting mules etc. These are products of human industry; natural material transformed into organs of the human will over nature, or of human participation in nature. They are organs of the human brain, created by the human hand; the power of knowledge, objectified. The development of fixed capital indicates to what degree general social knowledge has become a direct force of production, and to what degree, hence, the conditions of the process of social life itself have come under the control of the general intellect and been transformed in accordance with it.”

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

Die Natur baut keine Maschinen, keine Lokomotiven, Eisenbahnen, electric telegraphs, selfacting mules etc. Sie sind Produkte der menschlichen Industrie; natürliches Material, verwandelt in Organe des menschlichen Willens über die Natur oder seiner Betätigung in der Natur. Sie sind von der menschlichen Hand geschaffene Organe des menschlichen Hirns; vergegenständliche Wissenskraft. Die Entwicklung des capital fixe zeigt an, bis zu welchem Grade das allgemeine gesellschaftliche Wissen, knowledge, zur unmittelbaren Produktivkraft geworden ist und daher die Bedingungen des gesellschaftlichen Lebensprozesses selbst unter die Kontrolle des general intellect gekommen, und ihm gemäß umgeschaffen sind.
(1857/58)
Source: Notebook VII, The Chapter on Capital, p. 626.