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Quote by Paul Lafargue

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The Right To Be Lazy

This book delves into the cultural, psychological, and philosophical aspects of laziness, examining its impact on productivity, creativity, and personal fulfillment. more

Author

Paul Lafargue
Paul Lafargue

Paul Lafargue, born on January 15, 1842, was a prominent French journalist. He played a significant role in the European social movements of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, particularly in the labor movement and socialist movement. Lafargue was known for his incisive pen and profound social analysis, and his works had a profound impact on later socialist and Marxist thinkers. more

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“Один зі способів зрозуміти нещодавню історію — уявити собі чергу по каву: уранці ви йдете до «Старбаксу», відчайдушно потребуючи чашки звичайної кави, перш ніж почнете класти цеглу, а тим часом молода особа в костюмі для йоги від Lulu Lemon влізає перед вами без черги і замовляє лате без піни зі знежиреним мигдалевим молоком — на двадцять осіб. Потім ця людина, яка влізла без черги, обертається до вас і починає читати вам лекцію про те, який ви сексист, агресивний «расист, котрому, перш ніж висловлюватися, варто згадати про свої привілеї.”

“Elements of experience, criticism, initiative, self-sacrifice, seeped down through the mass and created, invisibly to a superficial glance but no less decisively, an inner mechanic of the revolutionary movement as a conscious process”

“Those who substitute "people" for class, by prioritising the proletarian class above the party, believe they are rendering it a supreme homage whilst in fact they are declassing it, drowning it in "popular" confusion, and sacrificing it on the altar of counter-revolution.”

“To the Jacobins of this epoch [the French Revolution], as well as to those of our times, this popular entity constitutes a superior personality possessing attributes peculiar to the gods of never having to answer for their actions and never making a mistake. Their wishes must be humbly acceded to. The people may kill, burn, ravage, commit the most frightening cruelties, glorify their hero today and throw him into the gutter tomorrow, it is all the same; the politicians will not cease to vaunt the people's virtues and to bow to their every decision.”

“When the proletariat declares the dissolution of the hitherto existing world order, it merely declares the secret of its own existence, since it is in fact the dissolution of this order. When it demands the negation of private property, it is only laying down as a principle for society what society has laid down as a principle for the proletariat, what has already been incorporated in itself without its consent as the negative result of society.”

“What does it mean to be a proletarian, really? [...] It means you are a cog in a process of production that relies on what you do and think, while excluding you from being anything but its product. It means the end of sovereignty, the conversion of all experiential value to exchange value, the final defeat of autonomy.”