The bureaucracy is a circle from which no one can escape. Its hierarchy is a hierarchy of knowledge.

The leading princes are the most servile tools of English despotism. . . . The native princes are the stronghold of the present abominable English system.

Crack-brained meddling by the authorities [can] aggravate an existing crisis.

You will have to go through 15, 20, 50 years of civil wars and national struggles not only to bring about a change in society but also to change yourselves, and prepare yourselves for the exercise of political power.

As for slavery, there is no need for me to speak of its bad aspects. The only thing requiring explanation is the good side of slavery. I do not mean indirect slavery, the slavery of proletariat; I mean direct slavery, the slavery of the Blacks in Surinam, in Brazil, in the southern regions of North America. Direct slavery is as much the pivot upon which our present-day industrialism turns as are machinery, credit, etc. … Slavery is therefore an economic category of paramount importance.

All social rules and all relations between individuals are eroded by a cash economy, avarice drags Pluto himself out of the bowels of the earth.

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