The proletarian movement is the self-conscious, independent movement of the immense majority, in the interest of the immense majority.
Freedom does not consist in any dreamt-of independence from natural laws, but in the knowledge of these laws, and in the possibility this gives of systematically making them work towards definite ends.
The state, therefore, has not existed from all eternity. There have been societies that did without it, that had no notion of the state or state power. At a certain stage of economic development, which was necessarily bound up with the split of society into classes, the state became a necessity.
The ruling class has the means of material production at its disposal; the proletariat has nothing but their labor power.
The way in which men produce their means of subsistence depends first of all on the nature of the actual means they find in existence and have to reproduce.
Man makes religion; religion does not make man.
Social progress can be measured by the social position of the female sex.
Labor is the source of all wealth and all culture.
The theory of Communism may be summed up in one sentence: Abolish all private property.
The proletariat is the universal class, the class whose radical chains are capable of bursting asunder.
The first requisite of the happiness of the people is the abolition of religion.
The more the division of labor and the application of machinery extend, the more does competition extend among the workers, the more do their wages shrink together.
The state is nothing but a machine for the oppression of one class by another.
Ideas become a material force when they grip the masses.
The ruling ideas of each age have ever been the ideas of its ruling class.
The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.
Freedom is the recognition of necessity.