A commodity appears at first sight an extremely obvious, trivial thing. But its analysis brings out that it is a very strange thing, abounding in metaphysical subtleties and theological niceties.

There is no greater stupidity than for people...to marry and so surrender themselves to the small miseries of domestic and private life.

In a higher phase of communist society... only then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be fully left behind and society inscribe on its banners: from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.

The fact that labour is external to the worker, i.e., it does not belong to his intrinsic nature; that in his work, therefore he does not affirm himself but denies himself, does not feel content but unhappy, does not develop freely his physical and mental energy but mortifies his body and his mind. The worker therefore only feels himself outside his work, and in his work feels outside himself.

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

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

Darwin has interested us in the history of nature's technology.