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Force is the midwife of every old society pregnant with a new one. It is itself an economic power.

— Karl Marx Das Kapital (Buch I) (1867)

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Notes from Wikiquote

N.B. frequently paraphrased as "Force is the midwife of progress" (e.g. , (footnote), ).

More quotes by Karl Marx

Language comes into being, like consciousness, from the basic need, from the scantiest intercourse with other human.

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The circulation of capital realizes value, while living labour creates value.

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History is not like some individual person, which uses men to achieve its ends. History is nothing but the actions of men in pursuit of their ends.

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Philosophy stands in the same relation to the study of the actual world as masturbation to sexual love.

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Capital is dead labor, that vampire-like, only lives by sucking living labor, and lives the more, the more labor it sucks.

Das Kapital (Buch I) (1867)

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Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Karl Marx (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.