Men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly encountered, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all the dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living.

The need of a constantly expanding market for its products chases the bourgeoisie over the entire surface of the globe.

In the various stages of development which the struggle of working class against the bourgeoisie has to pass through, they always and everywhere represent the interests of the movement as a whole.

The more the division of labor and the application of machinery extend, the more does competition extend among the workers, the more do their wages shrink together.

If the labourer consumes his disposable time for himself, he robs the capitalist.

The wealthy man is the man whois much, not the one who has much

Society is a sort of organism on the growth of which conscious efforts can exercise little effect.