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Class instinct is subjective and spontaneous. ... To arrive at proletarian class positions, the class instinct of proletarians only needs to be educated; the class instinct of the petty bourgeoisie, and hence of intellectuals, has, on the contrary, to be revolutionized.

— Louis Althusser Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays (1968)

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More quotes by Louis Althusser

Like every 'intellectual', a philosophy teacher is a petty bourgeois. When he opens his mouth, it is petty-bourgeois ideology that speaks: its resources and ruses are infinite.

Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays (1968)

To be a Communist is to be a partisan and artisan of Marxism-Leninist philosophy: of dialectical materialism.

Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays (1968)

It is in the forms and under the forms of ideological subjection that provision is made for the reproduction of the skills of labour power.

Lenin, an 'innocent' and an autodidact in philosophy ... had the audacity to suggest the idea that a theory of philosophy is essential to a really conscious and responsible practice of philosophy.

Lenin and Philosophy (1971)

I shall call Ideological State Apparatuses (ISAs) a certain number of realities which present themselves to the immediate observer in the form of distinct and specialized institutions: ...

Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays (1968)

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