45+ Inspiring Karl Marx Quotes About Communism And Society!

Quotes by Karl Marx

Karl Marx is famous for his ideas on communism. This idea is banned in some countries because it is seen as a threat for other ideologies. These Marx quotes should be your inspiration to learn about the political views. Let's check 'em out!

• "All forms of the state have democracy for their truth, and for that reason are false to the extent that they are not democracy."
• "But, if constructing the future and settling everything for all times are not our affair, it is all the more clear what we have to accomplish at present: I am referring to ruthless criticism of all that exists, ruthless both in the sense of not being afraid of the results it arrives at and in the sense of being just as little afraid of conflict with the powers that be."
• "Reason has always existed, but not always in a reasonable form."
• "Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people."
• "The bureaucrat has the world as a mere object of his action."
• "The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point, however, is to change it."
• "The representation of private interests ... abolishes all natural and spiritual distinctions by enthroning in their stead the immoral, irrational and soulless abstraction of a particular material object and a particular consciousness which is slavishly subordinated to this object."
• "The rich will do anything for the poor but get off their backs."
• "The state is based on this contradiction. It is based on the contradiction between public and private life, between universal and particular interests. For this reason, the state must confine itself to formal, negative activities."
• "The weapon of criticism cannot, of course, replace criticism of the weapon, material force must be overthrown by material force; but theory also becomes a material force as soon as it has gripped the masses."
• "Theory is capable of gripping the masses as soon as it demonstrates ad hominem, and it demonstrates ad hominem as soon as it becomes radical. To be radical is to grasp the root of the matter. But, for man, the root is man himself."
• "There is a specter haunting Europe, the specter of Communism."
• "This is a kind of mutual reconciliation society... Actual extremes cannot be mediated with each other precisely because they are actual extremes. But neither are they in need of mediation, because they are opposed in essence."
• "We develop new principles for the world out of the world’s own principles. We do not say to the world: Cease your struggles, they are foolish; we will give you the true slogan of struggle. We merely show the world what it is really fighting for, and consciousness is something that it has to acquire, even if it does not want to."
• "What is genuine is proved in the fire, what is false we shall not miss in our ranks. The opponents must grant us that youth has never before flocked to our colours in such numbers, ... in the end, one will be found among us who will prove that the sword of enthusiasm is just as good as the sword of genius."

Famous Marx Quotes

Photo by wallpaperaccess.com

Not all people understand Marx on his idea of communism. Many critics emerge long after he dropped the communism and some others supported it. These famous Marx quotes will give you insights on his idea. Let's take a look!

• "But also when I am active scientifically, etc. – an activity which I can seldom perform in direct community with others – then my activity is social, because I perform it as a man. Not only is the material of my activity given to me as a social product (as is even the language in which the thinker is active): my own existence is social activity, and therefore that which I make of myself, I make of myself for society and with the consciousness of myself as a social being."
• "Communism is the riddle of history solved, and it knows itself to be this solution."
• "In general it is always empirical businessmen we are talking about when we refer to political economists, (who represent) their scientific creed and form of existence."
• "Natural science will in time incorporate into itself the science of man, just as the science of man will incorporate into itself natural science: there will be one science."
• "Our mutual value is for us the value of our mutual objects. Hence for us man himself is mutually of no value."
• "Political Economy regards the proletarian ... like a horse, he must receive enough to enable him to work. It does not consider him, during the time when he is not working, as a human being. It leaves this to criminal law, doctors, religion, statistical tables, politics, and the beadle."
• "The entire movement of history, as simply communism’s actual act of genesis — the birth act of its empirical existence — is, therefore, for its thinking consciousness the comprehended and known process of its becoming."
• "Under private property ... Each tries to establish over the other an alien power, so as thereby to find satisfaction of his own selfish need. The increase in the quantity of objects is therefore accompanied by an extension of the realm of the alien powers to which man is subjected, and every new product represents a new potentiality of mutual swindling and mutual plundering."
• "When communist artisans associate with one another, theory, propaganda, etc., is their first end. But at the same time, as a result of this association, they acquire a new need — the need for society — and what appears as a means becomes an end. ... the brotherhood of man is no mere phrase with them, but a fact of life, and the nobility of man shines upon us from their work-hardened bodies."
• "Workers of the world unite; you have nothing to lose but your chains."

Quotes from Karl Marx

Still needing more of Karl Marx quotes? Well, these are the other lists for your reference in understanding communism and also Marx himself. Let's check these out!

• "Anyone who knows anything of history knows that great social changes are impossible without feminine upheaval. Social progress can be measured exactly by the social position of the fair sex, the ugly ones included."
• "Capital is dead labor, which, vampire-like, lives only by sucking living labor, and lives the more, the more labor it sucks."
• "Democracy is the road to socialism."
• "History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce."
• "Let the ruling classes tremble at a communist revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. Workingmen of all countries, unite!"
• "Marx Revolutions are the locomotives of history."
• "Necessity is blind until it becomes conscious. Freedom is the consciousness of necessity."
• "Reason has always existed, but not always in a reasonable form."
• "The first requisite for the happiness of the people is the abolition of religion."
• "The meaning of peace is the absence of opposition to socialism."
• "The only antidote to mental suffering is physical pain."
• "The production of too many useful things results in too many useless people."
• "The rich will do anything for the poor but get off their backs."
• "The ruling ideas of each age have ever been the ideas of its ruling class."
• "The theory of Communism may be summed up in one sentence: Abolish all private property."