The Triple Thinkers (1938) [Oxford University Press, 1948], Preface, p. ix
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Memoirs of Hecate County
Edmund Wilson
To the Finland Station
Edmund Wilson
Edmund Wilson:
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Famous Edmund Wilson Quotes
“Marxism is the opium of the intellectuals.”
Memoirs of Hecate County (1946) [New York Review Books Classics, 2004], Ch. 5, p. 340
Karl Marx, in his Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right (1843-4), wrote "Religion…is the opium of the people" ("Die Religion…ist das Opium des Volkes"). Wilson was not the first writer to turn Marx’s statement on its head: Evelyn Waugh published a review of Harold Laski's Faith, Reason and Civilization in The Tablet, 22nd April 1944, under the headline "Marxism, the Opiate of the People".
In 1955 the French philosopher Raymond Aron wrote a book on Marxism called L'Opium des intellectuels. Hence Wilson's line is often attributed to him.
“It may be that there is nothing more demoralizing than a small but adequate income.”
Memoirs of Hecate County (1946) [New York Review Books Classics, 2004], Ch. 4, p. 136
“Education, the last hope of the liberal in all periods.”
To the Finland Station (1940) [Farrar Straus & Giroux, 1972, ISBN 1568495749/1145], Part I, Ch. 5: Michelet Between Nationalism and Socialism, p. 36
