Karl Marx Quotes

“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.”

“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 architect from the best of bees is this, that the architect raises his structure in imagination before he erects it in reality.”

“Accumulate, accumulate! This is Moses and the Prophets!”

“As exchange-values, all commodities are merely definite quantities of congealed labour-time.”

“Capital is dead labour, that, vampire-like, only lives by sucking living labour, and lives the more, the more labour it sucks. The time during which the labourer works, is the time during which the capitalist consumes the labour-power he has purchased of him.”

“Education is free. Freedom of education shall be enjoyed under the condition fixed by law and under the supreme control of the state.”

“Force is the midwife of every old society pregnant with a new one. It is itself an economic power.”

“Just as man is governed, in religion, by the products of his own brain, so, in capitalist production, he is governed by the products of his own hand.”

“Moments are the elements of profit.”

“Money is the alienated essence of man's labor and life; and this alien essence dominates him as he worships it.”

“There is no royal road to science, and only those who do not dread the fatiguing climb of its steep paths have a chance of gaining its luminous summits.”

“What exclusively determines the magnitude of the value of any article is therefore the amount of labour socially necessary, or the labour-time socially necessary for its production.”