“Optimism is the opium of the people.”
Source: The Joke (1967)
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Milan Kundera 198
Czech author of Czech and French literature 1929–2023Related quotes
“It is not religion but revolution which is the opium of the people.”
Source: Gravity and Grace (1947), p. 159 (1972 edition)
2010s, Audience Q&A following interview panel at Aalto University Center, 2012
“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.
2000s, Kingdom of Fear: Loathsome Secrets of a Star-crossed Child in the Final Days of the American Century (2004)
“The smell of opium is the least stupid smell in the world.”
1930s