I am nothing but I must be everything.
Karl MarxRead
Scientific truth is always paradox, if judged by everyday experience, which catches only the delusive appearance of things.
Interpretation
Scientific truth often contrasts with common perceptions, which can be misleading.
In this quote, Karl Marx highlights the idea that scientific truth often reveals complexities and contradictions that are not apparent in everyday experience. He asserts that what we commonly perceive can often be a deceptive simplification, and true understanding requires a deeper, more analytical approach that transcends initial appearances.
In practice
During a lecture on the nature of scientific inquiry, this quote can be used to illustrate the difference between layman's perceptions and the complexities revealed through science.
I am nothing but I must be everything.
Religion is the opiate of the people.
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.
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.
To be radical is to grasp things by the root.
Men's ideas are the most direct emanations of their material state.
To a toad what is beauty? A female with two lovely pop-eyes, a wide mouth, yellow belly, and green spotted back.
A man is accepted into a church for what he believes and he is turned out for what he knows.
All religions begin with the cry Help.
Size is not a reality, but a construct of the mind; and space a construct to contain constructs.
Injustice in the end produces independence.
As long as we think abstractly, as long as we find in patriotism and the exuberance of War our fulfillment, we will never understand those who do battle against us, or how we are perceived by them, or finally those who do battle for us and how we should respond to it all. We will never discover who we are. We will fail to confront the capacity we all have for violence.
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