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.

Nature is man's inorganic body -- that is to say, nature insofar as it is not the human body. Man lives from nature -- i.e., nature is his body -- and he must maintain a continuing dialogue with it is he is not to die. To say that man's physical and mental life is linked to nature simply means that nature is linked to itself, for man is a part of nature.

The whole proletariat must be armed at once with muskets, rifles, cannon and ammunition, and the revival of the old-style citizens militia, directed against the workers, must be opposed.

They don't know it, but they are doing it.

Machines were, it may be said, the weapon employed by the capitalists to quell the revolt of specialized labor.

The imaginary flowers of religion adorn man's chains. Man must throw off the flowers, and also the chains.

The unity of the bourgeoisie can be shaken only by the unity of the proletariat.