I am nothing but I must be everything.
Karl MarxRead
Every provisional political set-up following a revolution requires a dictatorship, and an energetic dictatorship at that.
Interpretation
Revolutions often necessitate a strong, authoritarian government to maintain order and implement changes.
In this quote, Karl Marx suggests that after a revolution, the establishment of a new political order is often accompanied by the need for a dictatorship. This dictatorship, characterized by decisive and vigorous leadership, is seen as essential for stabilizing the newly formed government and ensuring that the revolutionary ideals are effectively realized and safeguarded from counter-revolutionary forces.
In practice
This quote can be used in a political debate to highlight the necessity of strong authority during transitions.
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.
If there are men in this country big enough to own the government of the United States, they are going to own it.
Would they not fear that citizens not less tenacious than conscious of their rights would flock from the remotest extremes of their respective states to the places of election, to overthrow their tyrants, and to substitute men who would be disposed to avenge the violated majesty of the people?
Those against politics are in favor of the politics inflicted upon them.
A government which lays taxes on the people not required by urgent public necessity and sound public policy is not a protector of liberty, but an instrument of tyranny. It condemns the citizen to servitude.
It was by the sober sense of our citizens that we were safely and steadily conducted from monarchy to republicanism, and it is by the same agency alone we can be kept from falling back.
I don't usually admire Sarah Palin, but when she was making fun of this 'hopey changey stuff,' she was right: there was nothing there.
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