I am nothing but I must be everything.
Karl MarxRead
Revolutions are the locomotives of history.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Revolutions drive significant changes in society and history.
This quote by Karl Marx suggests that revolutions are powerful forces that propel societies forward, similar to how locomotives move trains. It implies that significant transformations in human history often come about through revolutionary actions that challenge the status quo and lead to fundamental changes in social, political, and economic structures.
Themes
RevolutionHistoryChangeSocietyTransformation
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about social justice, one might say, 'As Karl Marx claimed, revolutions are the locomotives of history, pushing us toward a more equitable future.'
More from Karl Marx
All quotes βReligion 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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History knows no scruples and no hesitation. Inert and unnering flows towards her goal. History knows herway. She makes no mistakes.
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The sad truth is that without complex business partnerships between African elites and European traders and commercial agents, the slave trade to the New World would have been impossible, at least on the scale it occurred.
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Benaras is older than history, older than tradition, older even than legend, and looks twice as old as all of them put together!
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History was not a matter of missing minutes on the tape. I did not stand helpless before it. I hewed to the texture of collected knowledge, took faith from the solid and availing stuff of our experience. Even if we believe that history is a workwheel powered by human blood -- read the speeches of Mussolini -- at least we've known the thing together. A single narrative sweep, not ten thousand wisps of disinformation. (82)
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Our national history cannot be national if, in the near future, one in three young adults feels their stories remain untold, if this country's long global history of empire and interconnections is marginalised and if the historical reality of race is rendered almost invisible.
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