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.
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
We dare not forget that we are the heirs of that first revolution.
John F. KennedyRead
The year of my birth, 1940, was the fulcrum of America in the twentieth century, when the nation was balanced precariously between the darkness of the Great Depression on one side and the storms of war in Europe and the Pacific on the other.
Tom BrokawRead
Benaras is older than history, older than tradition, older even than legend, and looks twice as old as all of them put together!
Mark TwainRead
Young women today often have very little appreciation for the real battles that took place to get women where they are today in this country. I don't know how much history young women today know about those battles.
Sandra Day O'ConnorRead
So prominent was the Jewish role in the foreign commerce of Europe that those nations that received the Jews gained and the countries that excluded them lost in the volume of international trade.
Will DurantRead
The great theme of modern British history is the fate of freedom. The 18th century inherits, after the Civil War, this very peculiar political animal. It's not a democracy, but it's not a tyranny. It's not like the rest of the world, the rest of Europe. There is a parliament, laws have to be made, elections are made.
Simon SchamaRead