Quotessence
Home / Authors / Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels

Friedrich Engels Quotes

Author

Filter quotes by topic

AllStatesClassProletariatFirstsPeoplePoliticalRevolutionCommunismDoeIfsMeanScienceSocialWorkersCapitalistConditionsExistenceFactsHistoryLaw

Famous Friedrich Engels Quotes

“True, t is only individuals who starve, but what security has the working-man that it may not be his turn tomorrow? Who assures him employment, who vouches for it that, if for any reason or no reason his lord and master discharges him tomorrow, he can struggle along with those dependant upon him, until he may find some one else 'to give him bread'? Who guarantees that willingness to work shall suffice to obtain work, that uprightness, industry, thrift, and the rest of the virtues recommended by the bourgeoisie, are really his road to happiness? No one. He knows that every breeze that blows, every whim of his employer, every bad turn of trade may hurl him back into the fierce whirlpool from which he has temporarily saved himself, and in which it is hard and often impossible to keep his head above water. He knows that, though he may have the means of living today, it is very uncertain whether he shall tomorrow.”

SurvivalWorkersFree MarketProletariatBourgeoisie
Author:Friedrich Engels
Create image

“The anarchists put the thing upside down. They declare that the proletarian revolution must begin by doing away with the political organization of the state. But to destroy it at such a moment would be to destroy the only organism by means of which the victorious proletariat can assert its newly-conquered power, hold down its capitalist adversaries, and carry out that economic revolution of society without which the whole victory must end in a new defeat and a mass slaughter of the workers similar to those after the Paris commune.”

MeanEndsStatesWholeMomentsWould BePoliticalEconomicRevolutionVictoryMassOrganizationWorkersDefeatParisAnarchyCapitalistOrganismsAdversariesAnarchismAnarchistSlaughterUpside DownProletariatCommunesThings Upside Down
Author:Friedrich Engels
Create image

“By bourgeoisie is meant the class of modern capitalists, owners of the means of social production and employers of wage labor. By proletariat, the class of modern wage laborers who, having no means of production of their own, are reduced to selling their labor power in order to live.”

MeanOrderSocialClassModernLaborProductionsSellingOwnersCapitalistEmployersProletariatBourgeoisieLaborersSocial Class
Book:The Communist Manifesto: with selections from The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte and Capital by Karl Marx
Create image

“What is Communism? Communism is the doctrine of the conditions of the liberation of the proletariat. What is the proletariat? The proletariat is that class in society which lives entirely from the sale of its labor and does not draw profit from any kind of capital; whose weal and woe, whose life and death, whose sole existence depends on the demand for labor.”

KindDoeExistenceClassConditionsDependsDemandDrawsLaborProfitDoctrineCommunismLiberationLife And DeathSoleWoeProletariat
Book:The Communist Manifesto: A Road Map to History's Most Important Political Document
Create image

“How do you think the transition from the present situation to community of Property is to be effected? The first, fundamental condition for the introduction of community of property is the political liberation of the proletariat through a democratic constitution.”

ThinkingFirstsPoliticalCommunitySituationConditionsConstitutionFundamentalsPropertyDemocraticLiberationTransitionIntroductionProletariatPresent Situation
Book:The Communist Manifesto
Create image