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.

[Napoleon] swept away everywhere the establishments of feudality. ... [He was] Caesar himself.

When the labourer co-operates systematically with others, he strips off the fetters of his individuality, and develops the capabilities of his species.

Men make their own history but not in circumstances of their own choosing.

Modern society, which, soon after its birth, pulled Plutus by the hair of his head from the bowels of the earth, greets gold as its Holy Grail, as the glittering incarnation of the very principle of its own life.

In the national struggles of the proletarians of the different countries, they point out and bring to the front the common interest of the entire proletariat, independently of all nationality.

Money plays the largest part in determining the course of history.