I am nothing but I must be everything.
Karl MarxRead
It is not history which uses men as a means of achieving - as if it were an individual person - its own ends. History is nothing but the activity of men in pursuit of their ends.
Interpretation
What this quote means
History is shaped by individuals acting to achieve their goals rather than a singular force manipulating them.
In this quote, Karl Marx emphasizes that history is created through the actions and struggles of individuals rather than being controlled by an overarching entity. He argues that history is the culmination of human endeavors, where people strive for their own ambitions, highlighting the agency of individuals in shaping societal events and outcomes.
Themes
HistoryIndividualsAgencyActionsGoals
In practice
Example use cases
During a lecture on the role of individuals in shaping history, this quote can emphasize the importance of personal agency.
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.
Karl MarxRead
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.
Karl MarxRead
Men's ideas are the most direct emanations of their material state.
Karl MarxRead
Similar quotes
It takes a willful disregard of history to appreciate how white Southerners could look at the Confederate battle flag and see states' rights or a way of life or a tradition - and not one human being whipping another, which was a common occurrence.
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Like the attack on Pearl Harbor, another hinge event in American history, 9/11 was a great tactical victory for America's enemies. But in both these cases, the tactical success of the attacks was not matched by strategic victories. Quite the reverse.
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I prefer my history dead. Dead history is writ in ink, the living sort in blood.
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Indeed, for almost 10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war unsupportable by the government, a conflict that brought about the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet empire.
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White America has seen to it that Black history has been suppressed in schools and in American history books. The bravery of hundreds of our ancestors who took part in slave rebellions has been lost in the mists of time, since plantation owners did their best to prevent any written accounts of uprisings.
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Good history is a question of survival. Without any past, we will deprive ourselves of the defining impression of our being.
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