I am nothing but I must be everything.
Karl MarxRead
Modern bourgeois society with its relations of production, of exchange, and of property, a society that has conjured up such gigantic means of production and of exchange, is like the sorcerer, who is no longer able to control the powers of the nether world whom he has called up by his spells.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Modern society has created powerful systems that we cannot fully control.
In this quote, Karl Marx describes how the advancements and complexities of bourgeois society—rooted in production, exchange, and property—have resulted in forces beyond our control, akin to a sorcerer summoning powers that ultimately overwhelm him. This metaphor warns us of the unforeseen consequences and loss of control that can arise from our own creations and societal structures.
Themes
SocietyControlProductionExchangePropertyPower
In practice
Example use cases
During a lecture on capitalism, this quote can illustrate the unforeseen consequences of industrialization.
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
Occasionally, the whole class struggle may be summed up in the struggle for one word against another word. Certain words struggle amongst themselves as enemies. Other words are the site of an ambiguity: the stake in a decisive but undecided battle
Louis AlthusserRead
The world is nothing but my perception of it. I see only through myself. I hear only through the filter of my story.
Byron KatieRead
Our passions do not live apart in locked chambers but dress in their small wardrobe of notions, bring their provisions to a common table and mess together, feeding out of the common store according to their appetite.
George EliotRead
My reality needs imagination like a bulb needs a socket. My imagination needs reality like a blind man needs a cane.
Tom WaitsRead
War should always be the absolute last resort.
Joe BidenRead
I am the truth, since I am part of what is real, but neither more nor less than those around me.
Wallace StevensRead