Marx Quotes
Prepared by: Dmitry Sirotkin
I present to you a selection of quotes from the economist and creator of Marxism Karl Marx (1818-1883).
Attempts to put his ideas into practice in the USSR and other countries were unsuccessful , but they continue to influence the development of mankind.
Quotes are grouped by topic: human manifestations, life ethics, man, society, religion, communism, wealth, truth, state, science, revolution, life, nations, freedom, capital, marriage, parents, love, punishment, ideas, history, morality , about myself, money, industry, women and men, writers, politics, conscience, reason, time, work.
Finally, there are quotes about Marx.
About human manifestations
Passion is an essential human force energetically striving for its object.
Self-contempt is a snake that eternally poisons and gnaws at the heart, sucks out its life-giving blood, and pours into it the poison of misanthropy and despair.
Despair for one's own salvation turns personal weaknesses into weaknesses of humanity in order to lift this burden from one's own conscience.
There are two kinds of courage: the courage of superiority and the courage of mental squalor, which draws strength from its official position, from the consciousness that it uses a privileged weapon in the struggle.
To remain modest in the face of immodesty is the most serious immodesty of the spirit.
The one who is carried away by the demon of ambition is no longer able to be restrained by reason, and he rushes to where he is drawn by an irresistible force: he no longer chooses his own place in society, and this is decided by chance and illusion.
There is nothing easier than to enjoy your moral perfection on every occasion; It is easiest to do this in relation to the dead.
Suffering, understood in a human sense, is human self-consumption.
Worn down by worries, a needy person is insensitive to even the most beautiful sight.
Excessive seriousness is the most comical thing, and excessive modesty is the most bitter irony.
Shame is a kind of anger, only turned inward.
Shame is already a kind of revolution.
About life ethics
An end that requires wrong means is not a right end.
It's easy to be holy when you don't want to be human.
There is no point in indulging in illusions.
If you want to influence other people, then you must be a person who truly stimulates and moves other people forward.
If a person’s character is created by circumstances, then it is necessary, therefore, to make the circumstances humane.
Everyone in whom Raphael sits must have the opportunity to develop unhindered.
Sell a man a fish and he will eat for a day; teach him to fish and you'll ruin a great business opportunity.
On a flat plain, every bump seems like a hill.
It is disgusting to be under the yoke - even in the name of freedom.
Without limiting the scope of activity, nothing remarkable can be accomplished in any field.
Each step of actual movement is more important than a dozen programs.
To accept one basis for life and another for science means admitting a lie from the very beginning.
There is nothing more terrible, more humiliating, than to be the slave of a slave.
About a human
Man is, in the most literal sense, not only an animal that is characterized by communication, but an animal that can isolate itself only in society.
Only by treating the man Paul as one of his own kind does the man Peter begin to treat himself as a man.
Each of us truly makes himself what he is in the eyes of the other.
Circumstances create people to the same extent that people create circumstances.
Human nature is designed in such a way that a person can achieve his improvement only by working for the improvement of his contemporaries, for their benefit.
If a person works only for himself, he can perhaps become a famous scientist, a great sage, an excellent poet, but he can never become a truly perfect and great person.
Man is free not because of a negative force to avoid this or that, but because of a positive force to manifest his true individuality.
What can be said about a person’s attitude towards his work, the same can be said about a person’s attitude towards another person.
Dignity is precisely what elevates a person most of all, what gives his activities and all his aspirations the highest nobility.
It is necessary to humanize human feelings, to create a human feeling that corresponds to all the richness of human and natural essence.
Man lives by nature.
By the way, quotes about a person
About the society
Society is the complete essential unity of man with nature, the true resurrection of nature, the realized naturalism of man and the realized humanism of nature.
The method of production of material life determines the social, political and spiritual processes of life in general.
Society cannot stop producing, just as it cannot stop consuming.
Only in a collective do there exist for each individual the means that give him the opportunity for the comprehensive development of his inclinations, and, therefore, only in a collective is personal freedom possible.
The thoughts of the ruling class are the dominant thoughts in every era.
Above all, we must avoid again contrasting “society” as an abstraction with the individual. The individual is a social being. Therefore, every manifestation of his life, even if it does not appear in the direct form of the collective, is a manifestation and affirmation of social life.
What does the average person want—to live and reproduce—does the animal also want? A sense of their human dignity, freedom, still needs to be awakened in the hearts of these people.
About religion
Religion is the sigh of an oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of soulless orders. Religion is the opium of the people.
The more a person invests in God, the less remains in himself.
Religion is the self-awareness and well-being of a person who either has not yet found himself or has already lost himself again.
Independent morality offends the universal principles of religion, and the special concepts of religion are contrary to morality.
It is hypocrisy that hides behind God, not believing either in its reality or in the omnipotence of good; It is selfishness that puts personal salvation above the salvation of the social whole.
Religion is only an illusory sun moving around a person until he begins to move around himself.
The abolition of religion, as the illusory happiness of the people, is a requirement for their real happiness. The requirement to renounce illusions about one’s position is the requirement to renounce a position that requires illusions.
By the way, quotes about religion
About communism
Communism, as the abolition of private property, means the demand for truly human life, as an inalienable property of man, means the formation of practical humanism.
Philosophers have only explained the world in various ways, but the point is to change it.
The free development of everyone is a condition for the free development of all.
From each according to his abilities, to each according to his work.
Where there is equality, there is no benefit.
The immediate goal of the communists is the same as that of all other proletarian parties: the formation of the proletariat into a class, the overthrow of the rule of the bourgeoisie, the conquest of political power by the proletariat.
Communists do not at all want to destroy the “private person” for the sake of the “universal” person, sacrificing himself.
Communists do not preach any morality at all. They make no moral demands on people.
About wealth
Wealth, if we consider it materially, consists only in the variety of needs.
The appropriation of wealth determines the renunciation of wealth in its material reality.
The human heart is an amazing thing, especially if a person carries the heart in his wallet.
He who enjoys wealth at the same time is both a slave and master of his wealth, is at the same time generous and base, capricious, arrogant, given over to wild fantasies, subtle, educated, intelligent. “He had not yet felt wealth as some completely alien force standing above himself.
About truth
Practice is the best criterion of truth.
Truth is universal, it does not belong to me alone, it belongs to everyone, it owns me, and not I own it.
Truth should be sought not in ghostly otherworldly regions, not outside of time and space, not in some “God” supposedly residing within the world or opposed to it, but much closer, in man’s own chest.
In the process of struggling with the truth, error exposes itself.
Truth is as little modest as light.
About the state
The state is nothing more than the organized aggregate power of the propertied classes, landowners and capitalists, directed against the exploited classes, peasants and workers.
Freedom consists in the fact that the state, from a body standing above society, turns into a body completely subordinate to it.
The oppressed are allowed to decide once every few years which member of the oppressing class will oppress them.
“People’s education through the state” is no good. On the contrary, the state needs very harsh education on the part of the people.
About science
There is no wide highway in science, and only those who, without fear of fatigue, climb its rocky paths can reach its shining peaks.
At the entrance to science, as at the entrance to hell, there should be a requirement: “Here it is necessary that the soul be firm; here fear should not give advice.”
At the entrance to science, like at the entrance to hell, there should be a requirement: “Self-respecting people should not blindly trust each other.”
Subsequently, natural science will include the science of man to the same extent that the science of man will include natural science: it will be one science.
By the way, quotes about science
About the revolution
Revolutions are the locomotives of history.
Let the ruling classes tremble before the Communist Revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose in it except their chains. They will gain the whole world.
We must make the people horrified at themselves in order to inspire courage in them.
A new revolution is possible only after a new crisis. But its onset is as inevitable as the onset of this last one.
All truly strong natures, once they set out on the revolutionary path, always drew new strength even from defeat.
About life
It is not the consciousness of people that determines their existence, but, on the contrary, their social existence determines their consciousness.
Life may die, but death must not live.
The process of human life consists of passing through different ages. But at the same time, all ages of a person exist side by side.
Progress is regression, because... denies other possibilities.
In direct correspondence with the increase in the value of the world of things, the depreciation of the human world increases.
One act of violence can only be eradicated by another similar act.
By the way, quotes about life
About nations
A nation, like a woman, is not forgiven for a moment of misstep, when the first adventurer he meets can commit violence against her.
A people who enslaves another people forges their own chains.
The communists are reproached as if they want to abolish the fatherland and nationality. Workers have no fatherland. You can't take away from them what they don't have.
Every nation can and should learn from others.
Minds are always connected by invisible threads to the body of the people.
About freedom
The kingdom of freedom actually begins only where work, dictated by need and external expediency, ceases; therefore, by the nature of things, it lies on the other side of the sphere of material production itself.
Freedom is so inherent in man that even its opponents realize it by fighting against its implementation.
Do I not destroy freedom of character when I demand that he be free in someone else's way?
No man fights against freedom; at most, man fights against the freedom of others.
By the way, quotes about freedom
About capital
There is no crime that capital is not ready to commit.
Capital is dead labor, which, like a vampire, comes to life only when it absorbs living labor and lives the more fully the more living labor it absorbs.
Capital has one and only vital desire - the desire to grow, to create surplus value, to absorb with its constant part, the means of production, the largest possible mass of surplus labor.
Commodity circulation is the starting point of capital.
About marriage
No one is forced into marriage, but everyone must be forced to obey the laws of marriage once he has entered into marriage.
A bourgeois marriage is in reality a community of wives. The only reproach that could be made against the communists is that they want to introduce an official, open one instead of a hypocritically hidden community of wives.
Almost any dissolution of a marriage is a dissolution of the family, and even from a purely legal point of view, the position of children and their property cannot be made dependent on the arbitrary discretion of the parents.
By the way, quotes about weddings and marriage
About parents
The love of parents is the most selfless.
An adult cannot become a child again without falling into childhood. But isn’t he pleased with the child’s naivety, and shouldn’t he himself strive to reproduce the truth inherent in the child at a higher level?
The most cowardly people, incapable of resistance, become implacable where they can demonstrate absolute parental authority.
About love
Faith, free from all doubts, in the genuineness of love, which the beloved expresses, is for the beloved the highest pleasure in herself, is her faith in herself.
If you love without causing reciprocity, i.e. if your love as love does not give rise to reciprocal love, if by your life manifestation as a loving person you do not make yourself a loved person, then your love is powerless, and it is misfortune.
Temporary separation is useful, because constant communication creates the appearance of monotony.
By the way, quotes about love
About punishment
The punishment should not inspire more disgust than the offense.
The world has never been able to be corrected or threatened with punishment.
Punishment is nothing more than a means of self-defense of society against violations of the conditions of its existence. But it is a good society that does not know a better means of self-defense than the executioner, and that proclaims its own cruelty as an eternal law.
About ideas
Ideas cannot accomplish anything at all. To implement ideas, people are required who must use practical force.
Ideas become material force when they take hold of the masses.
The ideas to which reason chains our conscience are bonds from which one cannot escape without tearing one's heart, they are demons that a person can defeat only by submitting to them.
About history
The history of all hitherto existing societies has been the history of class struggle. It would, of course, be very convenient to create world history if the struggle were undertaken only under the condition of infallibly favorable chances.
The first premise of all human history is, of course, the existence of living human individuals.
About morality
Morality is “powerlessness in action.” Every time she enters into a fight against any vice, she is defeated.
Morality is based on the autonomy of the human spirit.
Every social form of property has its own morality.
About Me
I sacrificed my entire fortune to the revolutionary struggle.
I enter into friendship with only very few, but I value it.
I only know one thing: that I am not a Marxist.
About money
Money is a commodity itself, an external thing that can become the private property of any person.
Real money is always world market money.
Money may represent manure, although manure is not money.
By the way, quotes about money
About industry
Nature does not build cars, steam locomotives, railways, electric telegraphs, self-factors, etc... All these are organs of the human brain created by the human hand;
Ignorance is the mother of industry, as is superstition. The power of reflection and imagination is fallible; but the habit of moving an arm or a leg does not depend on either one. Manufactures therefore flourish best where the spiritual life is most repressed, so that the workshop may be regarded as a machine of which men are the parts.
About women and men
The attitude towards a woman, as a prey and servant of public voluptuousness, expresses the endless degradation in which a person finds himself in relation to himself.
The direct, natural, necessary relationship of a person to a person is the relationship of a man to a woman. Based on this relationship, one can, therefore, judge the level of a person’s general culture.
By the way, quotes about women and quotes about men
About the writers
A writer, of course, must earn money in order to be able to exist and write, but in no case should he exist and write in order to earn money.
The writer does not at all look at his work as a means. She is an end in herself; she is not a means to such an extent either for him or for others that the writer sacrifices his personal existence to her existence, when necessary.
About politics
In politics, for the sake of a certain goal, you can enter into an alliance even with the devil himself - you just need to be sure that you will draw the devil, and not the devil you.
A novice in politics, like a novice in natural sciences, is like a painter who knows only two colors, white and black, or, if you prefer, black and white and red.
By the way, quotes about politics
About conscience
Conscience depends on knowledge and on the entire lifestyle of a person. A republican has a different conscience from a royalist, a have has a different conscience from a have-not, a thinker has a different conscience from someone who is unable to think.
The “conscience” of the privileged is, after all, a privileged conscience.
About the mind
Universal modesty of spirit is reason, that universal independence of thought that treats every thing as required by the essence of the thing itself.
Reason has always existed, just not always in intelligent form.
By the way, quotes about the mind
About the time
Time is space for developing abilities.
All savings ultimately come down to saving time. embodied power of knowledge.
By the way, quotes about time
About labor
The ability to work does not mean work.
Price is the monetary name for the labor embodied in a commodity.
About miscellaneous
The death of heroes is like the sunset.
Culture is a measure of humanity in a person.
In the bustle of this world, friendship is the only thing that matters in personal life.
What is illness if life is not constrained in its freedom?
The crowd looks in amazement at the accumulated masses, especially if they are concentrated in the hands of a few. But the annually produced masses, like eternal, innumerable waves of a mighty stream, roll past and are lost irretrievably in the ocean of consumption. And yet, this eternal consumption determines not only all pleasures, but also the existence of the entire human race.
In any speculation in stocks, everyone knows that a thunderstorm will break out someday, but everyone hopes that it will burst over the head of his neighbor after he himself has managed to collect the golden shower and hide it in a safe place.
Any emancipation consists in the fact that it returns the human world, human relations to the person himself.
The essential form of spirit is joy, light.
Imagination is a great gift that has contributed so much to the development of mankind.
A frock coat is not exchanged for a frock coat.
The teacher himself must be educated.
Ignorance is a demonic force, and we fear it will cause many more tragedies.
There are no rights without responsibilities, no responsibilities without rights.
The belief system label differs from the label of other goods, by the way, in that it deceives not only the buyer, but often also the seller.
The traditions of all dead generations loom like a nightmare over the minds of the living.
Muscovy was educated and raised in the terrible and vile school of Mongol slavery. She was strengthened only by becoming a virtuoso in the art of slavery. Even after its liberation, Muscovy continued to play its traditional role of slave turned master.
Experience extols as the happiest the one who brought happiness to the greatest number of people.
A railway that is not traveled, which is not used, which is not consumed, is a railway only in possibility, and not in reality.
As you can see, the topic of Karl Marx’s quotes is not limited to communism and economics , it is much broader. It is interesting that to this day assessments of Marx’s teachings are very contradictory and it still causes lively discussions. Although, it would seem, that capitalism, on the basis of the analysis of which he developed Marxism, no longer exists for a long time, and attempts to implement it in practice have been unsuccessful.
Quotes about Marx
- M. Bakunin: I hate communism because it is the denial of freedom, and I cannot imagine anything human without freedom. I am not a communist, because communism concentrates all the forces of society in the state, which absorbs them, because it inevitably leads to the centralization of property in the hands of the state, while I desire the abolition of the state - the radical eradication of the principle of authority and state tutelage, which, under the pretext of civilization and the improvement of people to this day has enslaved, oppressed, exploited and demoralized them.
- V. Lenin: Marx’s teaching is omnipotent because it is true. (by the way, quotes from Vladimir Lenin)
- N. Berdyaev: Marxism is not a social utopia; experience of implementing Marxism in social life is possible. But Marxism is a spiritual utopia, a utopia of perfect rationalization of all human life. (by the way, quotes from Nikolai Berdyaev)
- A. Hitler: The teaching of Marxism is a bizarre mixture of the reasonable with the most absurd inventions of the human mind. But at the same time, the Jew systematically makes sure that only the second part of this sermon, and in no case the first, finds application in living reality. Systematically rejecting the role of the individual, and thereby the nation, and the racial “content” of the latter, Marxist teaching gradually destroys all the most elementary foundations of human culture. (by the way, quotes from Adolf Hitler)
- A. Camus: Be that as it may, after Marx’s death only a handful of disciples remained faithful to his critical method. Those Marxists who consider themselves the makers of history have adopted the prophetic and apocalyptic aspects of his teaching in order to use them to carry out the Marxist revolution in those conditions in which, according to Marx, it had no chance of happening. It can be said of Marx that most of his predictions came into conflict with facts, while the prophecies became the object of ever-increasing faith. (by the way, quotes from Albert Camus)
- C. Jung: Marxism is a dangerous doctrine that has killed more people than the bubonic plague. (by the way, quotes from Carl Jung)
- E. Fromm: Marx's goal - the development of the individual human personality - is denied even more in the Soviet system of socialism than in modern capitalism. The materialism of the communists is much closer to the mechanical materialism of the bourgeois era of the 19th century. (which Marx opposed) than to Marx’s “historical materialism.” (by the way, quotes from Erich Fromm)
- M. Thatcher: “Marx and Spencer” defeated Marx and Engels. (by the way, quotes from Margaret Thatcher)
Next, you can move on to other collections of quotes:
- Stalin quotes
- Bismarck quotes
- Che Guevara quotes
- Nietzsche quotes
- Machiavelli quotes
- Freud quotes
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Karl Heinrich Marx was born on May 5, 1818, in the city of Trier, Prussia. Philosopher, economist, political journalist. His scientific works and publications formed the theory of surplus value in economics, and the ideology of class struggle in politics. These directions became the basis of the communist and socialist movement and were called “Marxism”. Author of works - “Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts”, “German Ideology”, “Wages and Capital”, “Capital”, “Criticism of the Gotha Program”, etc. He died on March 14, 1883, in London, Great Britain.Aphorisms, quotes, sayings, phrases Karl Heinrich Marx
- Religion is the opium of the people.
- Revolutions are the locomotives of history.
- The teacher himself must be educated.
- I only know one thing: that I am not a Marxist.
- A ghost is haunting Europe, the ghost of communism.
- It is disgusting to be under the yoke - even in the name of freedom.
- On a flat plain, every bump seems like a hill.
- Life may die, but death must not live.
- It's easy to be holy when you don't want to be human.
- Moral force cannot be created by paragraphs of law.
- Shame is a kind of anger, only turned inward.
- A people who enslaves another people forges their own chains.
- All savings ultimately come down to saving time.
- An end that requires wrong means is not a right end.
- There is nothing more terrible, more humiliating, than to be the slave of a slave.
- An individual violinist controls himself; an orchestra needs a conductor.
- We must make the people horrified at themselves in order to inspire courage in them.
- Each of us truly makes himself what he is in the eyes of the other.
- He who enjoys wealth is at the same time both the slave and the master of his wealth.
- In direct correspondence with the increase in the value of the world of things, the depreciation of the human world increases.
- If the form of manifestation and the essence of things directly coincided, then all science would be superfluous.
- Cruelty is characteristic of laws dictated by cowardice, for cowardice can only be energetic when it is cruel.
- The strongest fortress is the human head. The traditions of all dead generations loom like a nightmare over the minds of the living.
- No one is forced into marriage, but everyone must be forced to obey the laws of marriage once he has entered into marriage.
- The process of human life consists of passing through different ages. But at the same time, all ages of a person exist side by side.
- In politics, for the sake of a certain goal, you can enter into an alliance even with the devil himself - you just need to be sure that you will draw the devil, and not the devil you.
- There is no wide highway in science, and only those who, without fear of fatigue, climb its rocky paths can reach its shining peaks.
- A writer, of course, must earn money in order to be able to exist and write, but in no case should he exist and write in order to earn money.
- The weapon of criticism cannot, of course, replace criticism with weapons; material force must be overthrown by material force; but theory also becomes a material force as soon as it takes possession of the masses.
- The success of ideas depends on how much the masses are “interested” in known goals and how much these goals arouse the enthusiasm of the masses. The 'idea' invariably disgraced itself as soon as it separated itself from the interest of the masses.
- If a person works only for himself, he can perhaps become a famous scientist, a great sage, an excellent poet, but he can never become a truly perfect and great person.
- Provide 10% profit, and the capital agrees to any use; 20% – becomes lively; 50% – ready to break your head; 100% – tramples under foot all laws; 300% - there is no crime that he would not risk, at least under pain of the gallows.
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And with 300 percent of the profit, there is no crime that he (capital) would not risk committing, at least under pain of the gallows. Karl Marx
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A smile doesn't cost much, but it increases your capital. Anton Antonov
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The capital approach without capital... is a waste. Misha Bogorodsky
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https://chopor.ru/news/material/id/3226
“There is no crime that capital will not commit for the sake of 300% profit, said old Marx”
The guest of “Iron Logic” is political scientist, economist, first vice-rector of the Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation Konstantin Simonov .
The presenters of Vesti FM are Sergey Mikheev , Alla Volokhina .
Simonov : When we talk about price, a lot of nonsense is told in this genre. For example, there is about the conspiracy between Saudi Arabia and the United States in 1985, which collapsed the USSR. I often remember this story, because it kind of clogs up my mind, and when you try to see the political factor in the price, they say: “Ah, you’re one of those who tell us how the Saudis destroyed the Union.” Because there the story was a little different. This is precisely the story that proves that the influence of the United States on price is much higher than the influence of the Saudis; that was then.
I will briefly recall it, because perhaps this story is important for understanding. The fact is that when the revolution happened in Iran in 1979, oil prices soared - this is the second so-called oil crisis. And suddenly in the early 80s it went down. On the one hand, there was a supply factor, the British North Sea oil was launched there, but in fact it was then that the United States first began trading futures. They began to change the pricing mechanics. That is, 1983 was the year of the first futures trading.
The Saudis discovered that the price of oil had begun to fall. What did they do? They began to sharply reduce production, hoping precisely according to market theory that the withdrawal of their oil from the market would lead to an increase in prices. And they, to their surprise, discovered that they reduced production for a year, then they reduced production for the second - and the price fell and fell. They collapsed production by 300 million tons! 300 million is fantastic! That is, today we have Russia - 2500-3400, Saudis - about the same; that is, they cut production by more than 50%. They look, and the price drops. What to do in this situation? They simply changed tactics and decided to make money on volumes. Well, of course, since the cost is cheap, they began to unwind the mechanism. But at the same time, I want to tell you, even in 1991 - the year of the fall of the Soviet Union - they did not reach their same indicators of the early 80s, that is, they did not return to the same level. Therefore, this, of course, is relevant to the question; they also say that the Saudis finished off the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union collapsed for another reason.
But then we already saw that the influence of the United States on the price is quite large, and in the 90s additional decisions were made there, the Pension Fund was allowed to invest, that is, this system became even more refined. And today, in fact, we see that the United States is quite capable of playing with this price. And hence one of the hypotheses is that the United States is really deliberately lowering oil prices in order to create difficulties for the Russian economy. And in fact, many of the decisions that the Fed made, now there was a decision on the key rate, and in the spring of 2014 there was a decision on the quantitative easing policy - the so-called QE. Let me remind you that during the crisis, the United States decided on a policy of quantitative easing, which simply means throwing money into the real sector to support large companies. Naturally, all this money sooner or later ends up in speculative markets, because business is not an idiot either: they took government support money and began to speculate in order to earn money faster than investing in long-term investments, and so on.
Mikheev : You disappoint me, is this really possible in America? I don't believe.
Simonov : The main task of a businessman is to earn money as quickly as possible, this is understandable. There is no crime that capital will not commit for the sake of, as we know, 300% profit, as old Marx also spoke about.
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