I am nothing but I must be everything.
Karl MarxRead
Without doubt, machinery has greatly increased the number of well-to-do idlers.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Marx critiques how machinery and technology can lead to idleness among the wealthy.
In this quote, Karl Marx highlights the paradox of technological advancement, suggesting that while machinery increases productivity and wealth, it also contributes to a class of affluent individuals who do not engage in productive labor. This observation criticizes the socioeconomic structures that allow for wealth accumulation without work, raising questions about the nature of labor, value, and the consequences of automation in society.
Themes
MachineryIdlersWealthWorkLabor
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about technology's impact on society, one can reference this quote to illustrate the unintended consequences of automation.
More from Karl Marx
All quotes βReligion 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
If one yearns to see the face of the Divine, one must break out of the aquarium, escape the fish farm, to go swim up wild cataracts, dive in deep fjords. One must explore the labyrinth of the reef, the shadows of the lily pads. How limiting, how insulting to think of God as a benevolent warden, an absentee hatchery manager who imprisons us in the 'comfort' of artificial pools, where intermediaries sprinkle our restrictive waters with sanitized flakes of processed nutriment.
Tom RobbinsRead
Appearances are a glimpse of the unseen.
AnaxagorasRead
Can one drown in one's element... If fish can drown in water, can human beings suffocate in air?
Salman RushdieRead
Protestants believe that the sacraments are like ladders that God gave to us by which we can climb up to Him. Catholics believe that they are like ladders that God gave to Himself by which He climbs down to us.
Peter KreeftRead
A small grove massacred to the last ash, _x000D_ _x000D_ An oak with heart-rot, give away the show: _x000D_ _x000D_ This great society is going to smash; _x000D_ _x000D_ They cannot fool us with how fast they go, _x000D_ _x000D_ How much they cost each other and the gods. _x000D_ _x000D_ A culture is no better than its woods.
W. H. AudenRead
A wider of more altruistic attitude is very relevant in today's world. If we look at the situation from various angles, such as the complexity and inter-connectedness of the nature of modern existence, then we will gradually notice a change in our outlook, so that when we say 'others' and when we think of others, we will no longer dismiss them as something that is irrelevant to us. We will no longer feel indifferent.
Dalai LamaRead