Religion is the impotence of the human mind to deal with occurrences it cannot understand.

In proportion as capital accumulates, the lot of the laborer, be his payment high or low, must grow worse.

The need of a constantly expanding market for its products chases the bourgeoisie over the entire surface of the globe. It must nestle everywhere, settle everywhere, establish connections everywhere. The bourgeoisie has, through its exploitation of the world market, given a cosmopolitan character to production and consumption in every country. To the great chagrin of reactionaries, it has drawn from under the feet of industry the national ground on which it stood.

Society does not consist of individuals but expresses the sum of interrelations, the relations within which these individuals stand.

By means of the banking system the distribution of capital as a special business, a social function, is taken out of the hands of the private capitalists and usurers. But at the same time, banking and credit become the most effective means of driving captialist production beyond its own limits and one of the most effective vehicles of crises and swindle.

The traditions of the dead generations weigh like a nightmare upon the living.

The consciousness of the past weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living.