Quotessence
Home / Authors / Karl Marx
Karl Marx

Karl Marx Quotes

Philosopher

Filter quotes by topic

AllMenCommunismProductionsCommunist ManifestoClassCapitalistProletariatWorldPeopleBourgeoisieSocialCapitalismDoeRevolutionHumansIfsMeanPhilosophicalValuesEconomics

Famous Karl Marx Quotes

“And here it becomes evident that the bourgeoisie is unfit any longer to be the ruling class in society and to impose its conditions of existence upon society as an over-riding law. It is unfit to rule because it is incompetent to assure an existence to its slave within his slavery, because it cannot help letting him sink into such a state that it has to feed him instead of being fed by him. Society can no longer live under this bourgeoisie; in other words, its existence is no longer compatible with society. The essential condition for the existence, and for the sway of the bourgeois class, is the formation and augmentation of capital; the condition for capital is wage-labor. Wage-labor rests exclusively on competition between the laborers. The advance of industry, whose involuntary promoter is the bourgeoisie, replaces the isolation of the laborers, due to competition, by their revolutionary combination, due to association. The development of modern industry, therefore, cuts from under its feet the very foundation on which the bourgeoisie produces and appropriates products. What the bourgeoisie therefore produces, above all, are its own grave diggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable.”

ExistenceSocietyIndustryVictorySlaveryCompetitionInevitableIsolationIncompetenceCapitalProletariatBourgeoisieRuleWage LaborUnfitGrave Diggers
Book:The Communist Manifesto
Create image

“The bourgeoisie, by the rapid improvement of all instruments of production, by the immensely facilitated means of communication, draws all, even the most barbarian, nations into civilization. The cheap prices of its commodities are the heavy artillery with which it batters down all Chinese walls, with which it forces the barbarians' intensely obstinate hatred of foreigners to capitulate. It compels all nations, on pain of extinction, to adopt the bourgeois mode of production; it compels them to introduce what it calls civilization into their midst, i.e., to become bourgeois themselves. In one word, it creates a world after its own image.”

SocialClassCreationSocialismCommunismChineseMarxismBourgeoisBourgeoisie
Book:The Communist Manifesto
Create image

“The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionizing the instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and with them the whole relations of society. Conservation of the old modes of production in unaltered forms, was, on the contrary, the first condition of existence for all earlier industrial classes. Constant revolutionizing of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation, distinguish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones. All fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away; all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his real conditions of life and his relations with his kind.”

CapitalismBourgeoisEpochBourgeoisieProduction
Book:The Communist Manifesto
Create image

“The bourgeoisie, wherever it has got the upper hand, has put an end to all feudal, patriarchal, idyllic relations. It has pitilessly torn asunder the motley feudal ties that bound man to his 'natural superiors,' and has left remaining no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest, callous 'cash payment.' It has drowned the most heavenly ecstasies of religious fervor, of chivalrous enthusiasm, of philistine sentimentalism, in the icy water of egotistical calculation. It has resolved personal worth into exchange value, and in place of the numberless indefeasible chartered freedoms, has set up that single, unconscionable freedom—Free Trade. In one word, for exploitation, veiled by religious and political illusions, it has substituted naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation. The bourgeoisie has stripped of its halo every occupation hitherto honored and looked up to with reverent awe. It has converted the physician, the lawyer, the priest, the poet, the man of science, into its paid wage laborers. The bourgeoisie has torn away from the family its sentimental veil, and has reduced the family relation to a mere money relation.”

CapitalismCommunismExploitationFree TradeBourgeoisieEvils Of Capitalism
Book:The Communist Manifesto
Create image

“Constant revolutionizing of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguish the bourgeosis epoch from all earlier ones.”

SocialConditionsConstantProductionsUncertaintyEverlastingDisturbanceEpochBourgeoisieAgitationSocial ConditionsCommunist Manifesto
Book:Karl Marx on Society and Social Change: With Selections by Friedrich Engels
Create image

“The bourgeoisie, wherever it has got the upper hand, has put an end to all feudal, patriarchal, idyllic relations. It has pitilessly torn asunder the motley of ties that bound man to his "natural superiors," and left remaining no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest, than callous "cash payment.”

MenEndsSelfHandsLeftInterestNaturalRelationBoundsSuperiorsNakedTiesCashExploitationTornPaymentSelf InterestBourgeoisieCallousManifestosCommunist ManifestoIdyllicUpper HandNexus
Book:Marx: Selected Writings
Create image

“No sooner is the exploitation of the labourer by the manufacturer, so far, at an end, that he receives his wages in cash, than he is set upon by the other portions of the bourgeoisie, the landlord, the shopkeeper, the pawnbroker, etc.”

EndsEtcCashPortionsExploitationWagesBourgeoisieLandlordLabourersShopkeepers
Book:Communist Manifesto: The revolutionary text that changed the course of history
Create image

“In proportion as the bourgeoisie, i.e., capital, is developed, in the same proportion is the proletariat, the modern working class, developed - a class of labourers, who live only so long as they find work, and who find work only so long as their labour increases capital. These labourers, who must sell themselves piecemeal, are a commodity, like every other article of commerce, and are consequently exposed to all the vicissitudes of competition, to all the fluctuations of the market.”

LongClassModernIncreaseSellsCompetitionProportionLabourArticlesExposedCommerceCommodityWorking ClassProletariatBourgeoisieFluctuationVicissitudesLabourers
Book:Karl Marx: Selected Writings
Create image

“The need of a constantly expanding market for its products chases the bourgeoisie over the entire surface of the globe. It must nestle everywhere, settle everywhere, establish connections everywhere. The bourgeoisie has, through its exploitation of the world market, given a cosmopolitan character to production and consumption in every country. To the great chagrin of reactionaries, it has drawn from under the feet of industry the national ground on which it stood.”

WorldNeedsCountryCharacterGivenFeetProductsIndustryConnectionsProductionsSurfaceSettlingConsumptionExploitationGlobesConsumerismExpandingOverconsumptionReactionariesBourgeoisieChagrin
Author:Karl Marx
Create image

“Our epoch, the epoch of the bourgeoisie, posses however, this distinctive feature; it has simplified the class antagonisms. Society as a whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two great classes directly facing each other.”

TwoWholeClassFeaturesCampsHostileDistinctiveEpochBourgeoisieSplittingAntagonismManifestosPosseCommunist ManifestoSplitting Up
Book:The Communist Manifesto: A Road Map to History's Most Important Political Document
Create image

“All freed, fast-frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses, his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind.”

MenKindRealLastsFacesOpinionAirConditionsHolyPrejudiceRelationTrainAncientSensesSoberFrozenCompelledBourgeoisEpochBourgeoisieSwept AwayCommunist Manifesto
Book:Karl Marx and Frederick Engels: selected works in one volume
Create image

“In order to arouse sympathy, the aristocracy was obliged to lose sight, apparently, of its own interests, and to formulate its indictment against the bourgeoisie in the interest of the exploited working class alone. Thus, the aristocracy took their revenge by singing lampoons on their new masters and whispering in his ears sinister prophesies of coming catastrophe.”

OrderInterestLosesClassMastersSingingEarsSightRevengeWorking ClassCatastropheObligedAristocracyWhisperingSinisterBourgeoisieIndictment
Book:The Communist Manifesto: A Road Map to History's Most Important Political Document
Create image