I am nothing but I must be everything.
Karl MarxRead
Even an entire society, a nation, or all simultaneously existing societies taken together, are not owners of the earth. They are simply its possessors, its beneficiaries, and have to bequeath it in an improved state to succeeding generations.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Society does not own the earth; it merely holds it temporarily for future generations.
This quote emphasizes the idea that humanity's relationship with the earth is that of temporary stewards rather than owners. Karl Marx asserts that societies and nations should ensure that they protect and enhance the environment, leaving it in a better condition for future generations to inherit. It challenges the notion of ownership and invites us to consider our responsibilities towards nature and future societies.
Themes
EarthStewardshipPossessorsResponsibilityFuture Generations
In practice
Example use cases
During an environmental conference to highlight the need for sustainability.
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.
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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.
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Men's ideas are the most direct emanations of their material state.
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He was one of those men, and they are not the commonest, of whom we can know the best only by following them away from the marketplace, the platform, and the pulpit, entering with them into their own homes, hearing the voice with which they speak to the young and aged about their own hearthstone, and witnessing their thoughtful care for the everyday wants of everyday companions, who take all their kindness as a matter of course, and not as a subject for panegyric.
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The naked truth is always better than the best-dressed lie.
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Human nature is not a machine to be built after a model, and set to do exactly the work prescribed for it, but a tree, which requires to grow and develop itself on all sides, according to the tendency of the inward forces which make it a living thing.
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