I am nothing but I must be everything.
Karl MarxRead
Anyone who knows anything of history knows that great social changes are impossible without feminine upheaval. Social progress can be measured exactly by the social position of the fair sex, the ugly ones included.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote emphasizes the crucial role women play in driving social change and progress.
Karl Marx highlights that significant social transformations in history are closely tied to the involvement and upheaval of women. He asserts that the status of women, regardless of their appearance, serves as a metric for measuring societal advancement, indicating that true progress cannot occur without acknowledging and addressing the disparities faced by women.
Themes
Social ChangeWomen'S RightsProgressFeminismHistory
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about gender equality, you could use this quote to emphasize the importance of women's contributions to social movements.
More from Karl Marx
All quotes →Religion is the opiate of the people.
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It is absolutely impossible to transcend the laws of nature. What can change in historically different circumstances is only the form in which these laws expose themselves.
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Men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly encountered, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all the dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living.
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To be radical is to grasp things by the root.
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Men's ideas are the most direct emanations of their material state.
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