8/9/2019 Quotable Quotes From Karl Marx

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Quotable quotes from Karl Marx (1818 – 1883)

Ideas as Class Ideology: The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas: i.e.,the class, which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same

time its ruling and intellectual force. The class which has the means of material production at its disposal, has control over the means of mental production, so that thereby, generally speaking, the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it. Theruling ideas are nothing more that the ideal expression of thedominant material relationships, the dominant material relationshipsgrasped as ideas.

- The German Ideology 

Religious Ideas as Class Ideology The basis of irreligious criticism is: Man makes religion, religion doesnot make man. In other words, religion is the selfconsciousness andselffeeling of man who has either not yet found himself or hasalready lost himself again! "eligion distress is at the same time theexpression of real distress and the protest against real distress."eligion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartlessworld, just as it is the spirit of a spiritless situation. It is the opium of the people.

- Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right 

or!er"s #x$loitatio% a%d &ragme%tatio% '%der Ca$italism:#ithin the capitalist system all methods for raising the socialproductiveness of labor are brought about at the cost of the individuallaborer$ all means for the development of production transformthemselves into means of domination over, and exploitation of, theproducers$ they mutilate the laborer into a fragment of a man,degrade him to the level of an appendage of a machine, destroyevery remnant of charm in his work and turn it into a hated toil$ theyestrange from him the intellectual potentialities of the laborprocessin the same proportion as science is incorporated in it as an

independent power$ they distort the conditions under which he works,subject him during the laborprocess to a despotism the more hatefulfor its meanness$ they transform his lifetime into workingtime, anddrag his wife and child beneath the wheels of the %uggernaut of capital.

- The German Ideology 

'to$ia% isio% of t*e Comi%g Commu%ist +o,iety:!the division of labor o&ers us the 'rst example of how, as long asman remains in natural society, that is, as long as a cleavage existbetween the particular and the common interest, as long, therefore,as activity is not voluntary, but naturally, divided, man(s own deed

8/9/2019 Quotable Quotes From Karl Marx

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becomes an alien power opposed to him, which enslaves him insteadof being controlled by him. )or as soon as the distribution of laborcomes into being, each man has a particular, exclusive sphere of activity, which is forced upon him and from which he cannot escape.*e is a hunter, a 'sherman, a shepherd, or a critical critic, and must

remain so if he does not want to lose his means of livelihood$ while incommunist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activitybut each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, societyregulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me todo one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, 'shin the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, critici+e after dinner, justas I have in mind, without ever becoming hunter, 'sherman, shepherdof critic.

- The German Ideology 

Critiqui%g religious Ideologies a%d +e,ular Realities: The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people isreuired for their real happiness. The demand to give up the illusionabout its condition is the demand to 've up a condition which needsillusions. The criticism of religion is therefore in embryo the criticismof the vale of woe, the halo of which is religion! The immediate taskof philosophy, which is at the service of history, once the saintly formof human selfalienation has been unmasked, it to unmask selfalienation in its unholy forms. Thus the criticism of heaven turns intothe criticism of the earth, the criticism of religion into the criticism of 

right and the criticism of theology into the criticism of politics.

- Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right 

-*e #%d of Religio%:#hen society takes possession of all the means of production anduses them intelligently, thereby freeing itself and all its membersfrom the bondage that now prevails! when man can not only proposebut dispose of these things, it is then that the ultimate power which isre-ected in religion will disappear also. nd with it will disappear

religious re-ection itself, for the simple reason that it will no longerhave anything on which to re-ect.

- Anti-Duhring