The human being is in the most literal sense a political animal, not merely a gregarious animal, but an animal which can individuate itself only in the midst of society.

Taxes are the source of life for the bureaucracy, the army and the court, in short, for the whole apparatus of the executive power. Strong government and heavy taxes are identical.

Nothing can have value without being an object of utility.

...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.

Labour is ... not the only source of material wealth, i.e, of the use-values it produces. As William Petty says, Labour is the father of material wealth, the earth is its mother.

So far no chemist has ever discovered exchange-value either in a pearl or a diamond.

The task is not just to understand the world but to change it.