Modern bourgeois society with its relations of production, of exchange, and of property, a society that has conjured up such gigantic means of production and of exchange, is like the sorcerer, who is no longer able to control the powers of the nether world whom he has called up by his spells.
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.
Communism is for us not a state of affairs which is to be established, an ideal to which reality [will] have to adjust itself. We call communism the real movement which abolishes the present state of things. The conditions of this movement result from the premises now in existence.
The product of mental labor – science – always stands far below its value, because the labor-time necessary to reproduce it has no relation at all to the labor-time required for its original production.
Art is always and everywhere the secret confession, and at the same time the immortal movement of its time.
We should not say that one man’s hour is worth another man’s hour, but rather that one man during an hour is worth just as much as another man during an hour. Time is everything, man is nothing: he is at the most time’s carcass.
The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point, however, is to change it.[These words are also inscribed upon his grave]
In this moment, I am euphoric. Not because of any phony God’s blessing. But because, I am enlightened by my own intelligence.
Greek philosophy seems to have met with something with which a good tragedy is not supposed to meet, namely, a dull ending.
There is no royal road to science, and only those who do not dread the fatiguing climb of its steep paths have a chance of gaining its luminous summits.