I am nothing but I must be everything.
Karl MarxRead
The consciousness of the past weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living.
Interpretation
The awareness of historical events can burden those who live in the present.
This quote by Karl Marx highlights the impact of historical consciousness on contemporary society. It suggests that the memories and experiences of the past can create a heavy burden for individuals, affecting their thoughts, behaviors, and societal structures. The 'nightmare' metaphor emphasizes the negative influence of unresolved issues from history that continue to haunt the present.
In practice
In a discussion on social justice, one might use this quote to illustrate the burdens of historical injustices.
I am nothing but I must be everything.
Religion is the opiate of the people.
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.
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.
To be radical is to grasp things by the root.
Men's ideas are the most direct emanations of their material state.
The more people smoke herb, the more Babylon fall.
The church is not a dormitory for sleepers, it is an institution for workers; it is not a rest camp, it is a front line trench.
And where is the Prince who can afford to so cover his country with troops for its defense, as that ten thousand men descending from the clouds, might not in many places do an infinite deal of mischief, before a force could be brought together to repel them?
Two forms of government are favorable to the prevalence of falsehood and deceit. Under a Despotism, men are false, treacherous, and deceitful through fear, like slaves dreading the lash. Under a Democracy they are so as a means of attaining popularity and office, and because of the greed for wealth.
Mythology is not a lie, mythology is poetry, it is metaphorical. It has been well said that mythology is the penultimate truth--penultimate because the ultimate cannot be put into words. It is beyond words. Beyond images, beyond that bounding rim of the Buddhist Wheel of Becoming. Mythology pitches the mind beyond that rim, to what can be known but not told.
Chemical weapons simply have no place in the 21st century. Progress in this vital area will help generate momentum to meet our goal of eliminating all weapons of mass destruction.
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