The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point, however, is to change it.
Die Philosophen haben die Welt nur verschieden interpretiert; es kommt aber darauf an, sie zu verandern.
Philosophers
Karl Marx
Born in 1818 in Trier, Prussia, Karl Marx inverted Hegelian dialectics into materialism and constructed historical materialism, locating the driving force of history in economic relations of production. With Engels he authored The Communist Manifesto, presenting the theory of class struggle, and in his life's work Das Kapital he dissected the structural contradictions of capitalism through the concept of surplus value. His analytical methods transformed the methodology of social science as a whole.
View this figure's profile
Karl Marx's Other Quotes
Capital is dead labour, that, vampire-like, only lives by sucking living labour, and lives the more, the more labour it sucks.
The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.
Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.
Workers of all lands, unite!
Being determines consciousness.
Related Quotes
It is hard to retain what you learn unless you practice it.
-- Seneca
Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.
-- Marcus Aurelius
It is the task of one rightly oriented toward others to draw the circles in toward the centre.
-- Hierocles
It is not learning that makes people good, but practice.
-- Gaius Musonius Rufus
The knowledge and contemplation of nature is somehow defective and incomplete unless action follows.
-- Panaetius
The beginning is half of the whole.
-- Aristotle