I am nothing but I must be everything.
Karl MarxRead
Since only what is material is perceptible, knowable, nothing is known of the existence of God.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote argues that if only material things can be perceived, then God, as a non-material entity, cannot be known or understood.
In this quote, Karl Marx emphasizes the philosophical stance of materialism, suggesting that knowledge is limited to what can be observed and experienced through the senses. Since God is typically considered to be an immaterial being, Marx asserts that the existence or nature of God remains unknowable under a materialistic worldview, thus challenging the foundations of religious belief and calling into question the relationship between faith and empirical knowledge.
Themes
MaterialismKnowledgeGodPhilosophyBelief
In practice
Example use cases
In a philosophical debate about the nature of reality and belief, this quote could illustrate the limitations of human understanding.
More from Karl Marx
All quotes βReligion 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
The man who leaves money to charity in his will is only giving away what no longer belongs to him
VoltaireRead
Let me have my tax money go for my protection and not for my prosecution. Let my tax money go for the protection of me. Protect my home, protect my streets, protect my car, protect my life, protect my property...worry about becoming a human being and not about how you can prevent others from enjoying their lives because of your own inability to adjust to life.
Harvey MilkRead
Suddenly absurdism wasnβt an intellectual abstraction, it was actually realism. You could see the way that wealth was begetting wealth, wealth was begetting comfort β and that the cumulative effect of an absence of wealth was the erosion of grace.
George SaundersRead
Government: If you refuse to pay unjust taxes, your property will be confiscated. If you attempt to defend your property, you will be arrested. If you resist arrest, you will be clubbed. If you defend yourself against clubbing, you will be shot dead. These procedures are known as the Rule of Law.
Edward AbbeyRead
Searchers after horror haunt strange, far places.
H. P. LovecraftRead
Stop trying to fix your body. It was never broken.
Eve EnslerRead