Karl Marx Quotes: 290 Quotes on Communism, Religion, Love, and the Human Condition

“It is impossible to persue this nonsense any further.”

Karl Marx

(1857/58)
Source: (Bastiat and Carey), p. 813 (last text page, second last line).

“Your favourite virtue … Simplicity
Your favourite virtue in man … Strength
Your favourite virtue in woman … Weakness
Your chief characteristic … Singleness of purpose
Your idea of happiness … To fight
Your idea of misery … Submission
The vice you excuse most … Gullibility
The vice you detest most … Servility
Your aversion … Martin Tupper
Favourite occupation … Book-worming
Favourite poet … Shakespeare, Aeschylus, Goethe
Favourite prose-writer … Diderot
Favourite hero … Spartacus, Kepler
Favourite heroine … Gretchen [Heroine of Goethe's Faust]
Favourite flower … Daphne
Favourite colour … Red
Favourite name … Laura, Jenny
Favourite dish … Fish
Favourite maxim … Nihil humani a me alienum puto [Nothing human is alien to me, Terence]
Favourite motto … De omnibus dubitandum”

Karl Marx

Everything must be doubted
Marx's replies to a set of questions given to him by his daughters Jenny and Laura in 1865 http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1865/04/01.htm

Books , Flowers , Idea , Fish

“It is in fact not the consciousness dominating life but the very life dominating consciousness.”

Karl Marx

Source: The German Ideology (1845-1846), Vol. III, 27.

Life

“b>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.”

Karl Marx

“The Future Results of British Rule in India,” New York Daily Tribune, 08 August 1853

People , Drink

“Reason nevertheless prevails in world history.”

Karl Marx

Comments on the North American Events (1862)

World , History

“In political practice, therefore, they join in all coercive measures against the working class; and in ordinary life, despite the high-falutin phrases, they stoop to pick up the golden apples, and to barter truth, love, and honour for traffic in wool, beet-root sugar, and potato spirits.”

Karl Marx

Section 3, paragraph 9.
The Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848)

Love , Life , Truth

“Every beginning is difficult, holds in all sciences.”

Karl Marx

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

Science

“For capitalism is abolished root and branch by the bare assumption that it is personal consumption and not enrichment that works as the compelling motive.”

Karl Marx

Denn der Kapitalismus ist schon in der Grundlage aufgehoben durch die Voraussetzung, daß der Genuß als treibendes Motiv wirkt, nicht die Bereicherung selbst.
Vol. II, Ch. IV, p. 123.
(Buch II) (1893)

Motivation , Personality

“But simultaneously with the development of capitalist production the credit system also develops. The money-capital which the capitalist cannot as yet employ in his own business is employed by others, who pay him interest for its use.”

Karl Marx

Vol. II, Ch. XVII, p. 325.
(Buch II) (1893)

Money , Business

“I pre-suppose, of course, a reader who is willing to learn something new and therefore to think for himself.”

Karl Marx

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

Thinking , Learning

“Everything great glitters, glitter begets ambition, and ambition can easily have caused the inspiration or what we thought to be inspiration. But reason can no longer restrain one who is lured by the fury of ambition. He tumbles where his vehement drive calls him; no longer does he choose his position, but rather chance and luster determine it.
Then we are not called to the position where we can most shine. It is not the one which, in the long succession of years during which we may hold it, will never make us weary, subdue our zeal, or dampen our inspiration. Soon we shall see our wishes unfulfilled and our ideas unsatisfied.”

Karl Marx

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

Idea , Chance , Success

“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.”

Karl Marx

Vol. I, Ch. 1, Section 2, pg. 49.
(Buch I) (1867)

Clothes

“Capital grows in one place to a huge mass in a single hand, because it has in another place been lost by many. This is centralisation proper, as distinct from accumulation and concentration.”

Karl Marx

Vol. I, Ch. 25, Section 2, pg. 686.
(Buch I) (1867)

“History is not like some individual person, which uses men to achieve its ends. History is nothing but the actions of men in pursuit of their ends.”

Karl Marx book The Holy Family

The Holy Family, Ch. VI (1845).

Men , History , Personality

“If conquest constitutes a natural right on the part of the few, the many have only to gather sufficient strength in order to acquire the natural right of reconquering what has been taken from them.”

Karl Marx

Letter to Robert Applegarth (3 December 1869)
Source: The Abolition of Landed Property http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1869/12/03.htm (3 December 1869)

Nature , Parting

“Of all the animals kept by the farmer, the labourer, the instrumentum vocale, was, thenceforth, the most oppressed, the worst nourished, the most brutally treated.”

Karl Marx book Das Kapital

Vol. I, Ch. 25, Section 4(e), pg. 742.
Das Kapital (Buch I) (1867)

Animals

“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

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.

Life , Nature , Knowledge

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

Karl Marx

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

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

Karl Marx

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

Money

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

Karl Marx

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

History

“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

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

Health , Secret

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

Karl Marx

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

Housing

“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)

Idea

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

Karl Marx

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

Future , Country

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

Karl Marx

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

Life , Time

“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

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

Imagination , Reality , Bee

“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

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

Understanding

“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

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

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

Karl Marx

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

“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)

Imagination , Nature

“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

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

“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)

Reality , Appearance

“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

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

“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

Writings of the Young Marx on Philosophy and Society, L. Easton, trans. (1967), p. 39
Reflections of a Youth on Choosing an Occupation (1835)

Men , Tear , Joy , Happiness

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

Karl Marx

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

War

“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

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

Wealth

“A circuit performed by a capital and meant to be a periodical process, not an individual act, is called its turnover. The duration of this turnover is determined by the sum of its time of production and its time of circulation.”

Karl Marx

Volume II, Ch. VII, p. 158.
(Buch II) (1893)

Time

“Of all the classes that stand face to face with the bourgeoisie today, the proletariat alone is a really revolutionary class.”

Karl Marx

Section 1, paragraph 44, lines 1-2.
The Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848)

“If I negate powdered wigs, I am still left with unpowdered wigs.”

Karl Marx

Introduction to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right (1844).

“For the world to become philosophic amounts to philosophy’s becoming world-order reality; and it means that philosophy, at the same time that it is realized, disappears.”

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

The Difference Between the Democritean and Epicurean Philosophy of Nature (1841)

World , Reality , Time

“Money is itself a product of circulation.”

Karl Marx

(1857/58)
Source: Notebook VI, The Chapter on Capital, p. 579.

Money

“No sooner is the exploitation of the labourer by the manufacturer, so far, at an end, that he receives his wages in cash, than he is set upon by the other portions of the bourgeoisie, the landlord, the shopkeeper, the pawnbroker, etc.”

Karl Marx

Section 1, paragraph 34.
The Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848)

“Beauty is the main positive form of the aesthetic assimilation of reality, in which aesthetic ideal finds it direct expression…”

Karl Marx

About Beauty
(1857/58)

Beauty , Reality

“The tool, as we have seen, is not exterminated by the machine.”

Karl Marx

Vol. I, Ch. 15, Section 2, pg. 422.
(Buch I) (1867)

“What's sauce for the gander is sauce for the goose.”

Karl Marx

Grundrisse (1857-1858)
Source: Introduction, p. 37.

“The economic concept of value does not occur in antiquity.”

Karl Marx

(1857/58)
Source: Notebook VII, The Chapter on Capital, p. 696.

“The bourgeoisie, wherever it has got the upper hand, has put an end to all feudal, patriarchal, idyllic relations. It has pitilessly torn asunder the motley of ties that bound man to his "natural superiors," and left remaining no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest, than callous "cash payment."”

Karl Marx

Die Bourgeoisie, wo sie zur Herrschaft gekommen, hat alle feudalen, patriarchalischen, idyllischen Verhältnisse zerstört. Sie hat die buntscheckigen Feudalbande, die den Menschen an seinen natürlichen Vorgesetzten knüpften, unbarmherzig zerrissen und kein anderes Band zwischen Mensch und Mensch übriggelassen als das nackte Interesse, als die gefühllose "bare Zahlung".
Section 1, paragraph 14, lines 1-5.
The Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848)

Nature

“Luxury is the opposite of the naturally necessary.”

Karl Marx

Grundrisse (1857-1858)
Source: Notebook V, The Chapter on Capital, p. 448.

Nature

“Titles of property, for instance railway shares, may change hands every day, and their owner may make a profit by their sale even in foreign countries, so that titles to property are exportable, although the railway itself is not.”

Karl Marx

Vol. II, Ch. X, p. 215.
(Buch II) (1893)

Change , Country

“But every class struggle is a political struggle.”

Karl Marx

Section 1, paragraph 39, lines 8-9.
The Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848)