I am nothing but I must be everything.
Karl MarxRead
If we have chosen the position in life in which we can most of all work for mankind, no burdens can bow us down, because they are sacrifices for the benefit of all; then we shall experience no petty, limited, selfish joy, but our happiness will belong to millions, our deeds will live on quietly but perpetually at work, and over our ashes will be shed the hot tears of noble people.
Interpretation
What this quote means
True happiness comes from contributing to the greater good rather than seeking selfish pleasures.
In this quote, Karl Marx emphasizes that fulfillment in life is attained through selfless service to humanity. When individuals position themselves to work for the welfare of others, their burdens become meaningful sacrifices, leading to a profound joy that transcends personal gain, thus creating a legacy that continues to inspire and benefit future generations.
Themes
HappinessSelflessnessServiceHumanitySacrificeLegacy
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech advocating community service, one might say this quote to inspire volunteers.
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
To be a human being means to possess a feeling of inferiority which constantly presses towards its own conquest. The greater the feeling of inferiority that has been experienced, the more powerful is the urge for conquest and the more violent the emotional agitation.
Alfred AdlerRead
how can one respect, let alone adopt, the values of a people who do not, on any level whatever, live the way they say they do, or the way they say they should?
James A. BaldwinRead
And what is the potential man, after all? Is he not the sum of all that is human? Divine, in other words?
Henry MillerRead
It was like that all the time, in those years: an endless trip, a gaudy voyage. But powers decay. Time leaches the colors from the best of visions. The world becomes grayer. Entropy beats us down. Everything fades. Everything goes. Everything dies.
Robert SilverbergRead
Do you know my friend that each one of us is a dark mystery, a maze of conflicting passions and desire and aptitudes?
Agatha ChristieRead
Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough Gleams that untraveled world whose margin fades Forever and forever when I move. How dull it is to pause, to make an end, To rust unburnished, not to shine in use! As though to breathe were life!
Alfred Lord TennysonRead