Just as the savage must wrestle with nature to satisfy his wants, to maintain and reproduce life, so must civilised man, and he must do so in all social formations and under all possible modes of production.

History does nothing; it does not possess immense riches, it does not fight battles. It is men, real, living, who do all this.

Religious distress is at the same time the expression of the real distress and also the protest against real distress. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of the spiritless condition. It is the opium of the people.

Art is always and everywhere the secret confession, and at the same time the immortal movement of its time.

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

It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness.

Surplus-value and the rate of surplus-value are... the invisible essence to be investigated, whereas the rate of profit and hence the form of surplus-value as profit are visible surface phenomena