I am nothing but I must be everything.
Karl MarxRead
The redeeming feature of war is that it puts a nation to the test. As exposure to the atmosphere reduces all mummies to instant dissolution, so war passes supreme judgment upon social systems that have outlived their vitality.
Interpretation
What this quote means
War serves as a test that reveals the strengths and weaknesses of a nation's social systems.
In this quote, Karl Marx suggests that war acts as a crucible for nations, exposing their inherent qualities and the effectiveness of their social structures. Just as the harsh conditions of the environment can quickly deteriorate a preserved mummy, war has the capacity to reveal the failures of societies that have become stagnant or outdated, thus leading to potential renewal and change.
Themes
WarTestSocial SystemsVitalityJudgment
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about national resilience, I might say, 'As Karl Marx pointed out, the redeeming feature of war is that it puts a nation to the test.'
More from Karl Marx
All quotes →Religion is the opiate of the people.
Karl MarxRead
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.
Karl MarxRead
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
Sometimes I wonder if suicides aren't in fact sad guardians of the meaning of life.
Vaclav HavelRead
The first, that their pretensions to this possession of an art properly so called in their art of speaking are entirely unfounded; and the second, that they are involved in a profound mistake in their confusion of the good with the pleasant.
Friedrich SchleiermacherRead
With all the strength of my soul I urge you young people to approach the Communion table as often as you can. Feed on this bread of angels whence you will draw all the energy you need to fight inner battles. Because true happiness, dear friends, does not consist in the pleasures of the world or in earthly things, but in peace of conscience, which we have only if we are pure in heart and mind.
Pier Giorgio FrassatiRead
The minute you understand racism, you're responsible for being racist. It's like eating from the tree of knowledge.
Lynda BarryRead
They can print statistics and count the populations in hundreds of thousands, but to each man a city consists of no more than a few streets, a few houses, a few people. Remove those few and a city exists no longer except as a pain in the memory, like a pain of an amputated leg no longer there.
Graham GreeneRead
If, in the opinion of the people, the distribution or modification of the constitutional powers be in any particular wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in the way which the Constitution designates. But let there be no change by usurpation; for though this, in one instance, may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed.
George WashingtonRead