Friedrich Engels was a German philosopher.
Friedrich Engels was a political theorist, journalist, and historian. One of Friedrich Engels' most famous works includes 'The Communist Manifesto', which he co-authored with Karl Marx.
Friedrich Engels Quotes On Capitalism
Friedrich Engels's quotes on capitalism will help you understand his point of view on this revolutionary movement.
"Society as a whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two great classes, directly facing each other: Bourgeoisie and Proletariat."
- 'The Communist Manifesto'.
"Machinery becomes the most powerful weapon in the war of capital against the working class."
"Naked greed has been the moving spirit of civilization from the first day of its existence to the present time."
- 'The Origin Of The Family, Private Property And The State'.
"The history of all hitherto existing societies is the history of class struggles."
- 'The Communist Manifesto'.
"What is good for the ruling class, is alleged to be good for the whole of society with which the ruling class identifies itself."
"Monogamy was the first form of the family not founded on natural, but on economic conditions."
- 'The Origin Of The Family, Private Property And The State'.
"All quarrels and disputes are settled by the whole of the community affected, by the gens or the tribe, or by the gentes among themselves."
- 'The Origin Of The Family, Private Property And The State'.
"In this sense, the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property."
- 'The Communist Manifesto'.
"But the degradation of the women was avenged in the men and degraded them also, until they sank into the abomination of boy-love."
"In the Semitic patriarchal family, only the patriarch himself, or at best a few of his sons, practice polygamy, the others must be satisfied with one wife."
-'The Origin Of The Family, Private Property And The State'.
"Political power, properly so called, is merely the organised power of one class for oppressing another."
"Modern Industry has converted the little workshop of the patriarchal master into the great factory of the industrial capitalist."
- 'The Communist Manifesto'.
"Capitalist production...was necessary to develop the productive forces of society to a level which will make possible an equal development worthy of human beings for all members of society."
"From its first day to this, sheer greed was the driving spirit of civilization."
- 'The Origin Of The Family, Private Property And The State'.
"How is it possible that the poorer classes can remain healthy and have a reasonable expectation of life under such conditions?"
"If Hegel had not died long ago, he would hang himself, with all his theologies he could not have thought up this value which has as many different values as it has prices."
- 'Anti-Dühring: Herr Eugen Dühring's Revolution In Science'.
“I declared that I had never seen so badly built a town in my life. He listened patiently and at the corner of the street at which we parted company, he remarked: ‘And yet there is a great deal of money made here. Good morning, Sir!’”
"The English bourgeoisie is charitable out of self-interest; it gives nothing outright, but regards its gifts as a business matter, makes a bargain with the poor..."
- 'The Condition Of The Working Class In England'.
"Some laws of state aimed at curbing crime are even more criminal."
"The Communists have not invented the intervention of society in education; they do but seek to alter the character of that intervention, and to rescue education from the influence of the ruling class."
- 'The Communist Manifesto'.
"The war of the poor against the rich will be the bloodiest ever waged."
"To accomplish this act of universal emancipation is the historical mission of the modern proletariat."
Friedrich Engels Quotes On Socialism
(These Friedrich Engels quotes will shed some light on the rise of capitalism.)
The following Friedrich Engels quotes on socialism demonstrate the philosopher's ideas on the spread of socialism in different cities.
"The need of a constantly expanding market for its products chases the bourgeoisie over the whole surface of the globe."
- 'The Communist Manifesto'.
"Thus, as far as he is a scientific man, as far as he knows anything, he is a materialist; outside his science, in spheres about which he knows nothing."
- 'Socialism: Utopian And Scientific'.
"Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution."
"The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win."
"Communism deprives no man of the power to appropriate the products of society."
"In the earlier epochs of history, we find almost everywhere a complicated arrangement of society into various orders, a manifold gradation of social rank."
- 'The Communist Manifesto'.
"Moreover, parallel with the rise of the middle-class went on the great revival of science."
-'Socialism: Utopian And Scientific'.
"The state is not abolished, it withers away."
"It is perfectly clear that the existing state is neither able nor willing to do anything to remedy the housing difficulty."
- 'The Housing Question'.
"And, unless we believe in supernatural revelation, we must admit that no religious tenets will ever suffice to prop up a tottering society."
- 'Socialism: Utopian And Scientific'.
"The Communist revolution is the most radical rupture with traditional property relations."
- 'The Communist Manifesto'.
"In proportion, as the bourgeoisie grows in wealth, the proletariat grows in numbers."
- 'Principles Of Communism'.
"Look at the Paris Commune. That was the Dictatorship of the Proletariat."
"No nation can be free if it oppresses other nations."
-' On Scientific Communism'.
"Communism is the doctrine of the conditions of the liberation of the proletariat."
"The proletariat is that class in society which lives entirely from the sale of its labor and does not draw profit from any kind of capital."
- 'The Communist Manifesto'.
"There is no place yet for slaves, nor, as a rule, for the subjugation of other tribes."
"The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims."
"The nation is powerless against these two great cartels of politicians, who are ostensibly its servants, but in reality dominate and plunder it."
"In the family, he is the bourgeois, the woman represents the proletariat."
"This police force consisted--of slaves."
Friedrich Engels Quotes On Human Life
Considering he was a natural philosopher, these Friedrich Engels quotes will elucidate how class differences caused problems early on.
"The bourgeoisie has torn away from the family its sentimental veil, and has reduced the family relation to a mere money relation."
- 'The Communist Manifesto'.
"An ounce of action is worth a ton of theory."
"Do you charge us with wanting to stop the exploitation of children by their parents? To this crime we plead guilty."
- 'The Communist Manifesto'.
"Freedom is the recognition of necessity."
"The middle classes have a truly extraordinary conception of society. They really believe that human beings... have real existence only if they make money or help to make it."
- 'The Condition Of The Working Class In England'.
"All that is real in human history becomes irrational in the process of time."
"To get the most out of life you must be active, you must live and you must have the courage to taste the thrill of being young."
"History does nothing, it possesses no immense wealth, it wages no battles."
- 'The Holy Family: Critique Of Critical Critique'.
"Monogamous marriage was a great historical step forward."
"Let us not, however, flatter ourselves overmuch on account of our human victories over nature. For each such victory nature takes its revenge on us."
-'Dialectics Of Nature'.
"The animal merely uses external nature and brings about changes in it simply by its presence; man by his changes makes nature serve his ends, masters it."
- 'The Part Played By Labour In The Transition From Ape To Man'.
"This sacrifice of the future of the movement for its present may be 'honestly' meant, but it is and remains opportunism, and 'honest' opportunism is perhaps the most dangerous of all."
"If there were no Frenchwomen, life wouldn't be worth living."
"The next world war will result in the disappearance from the face of the earth not only of reactionary classes and dynasties, but also of entire reactionary peoples."
"Life is the mode of action of proteins."
"All the other large and small nationalities and peoples are destined to perish before long in the revolutionary world storm..."
"No member is permitted to marry within the gens. This is the fundamental rule of the gens, the tie that holds it together."
- 'The Origin Of The Family, Private Property And The State'.
"History is as little able as cognition to reach a final conclusion in a perfect, ideal condition of humanity."
- 'Ludwig Feuerbach And The Outcome Of Classical German Philosophy'.
"A perfect society, a perfect 'state', are things which can only exist in the imagination."
"Does it require deep intuition to comprehend that man's ideas, views and conceptions, in one word, man's consciousness, changes with every change in the conditions of his material existence, in his social relations and in his social life?"
- 'The Communist Manifesto'.
"A certain pairing for a longer or shorter term took place even during the group marriage or still earlier."
"The emancipation of woman will only be possible when woman can take part in production on a large, social scale, and domestic work no longer claims anything but an insignificant amount of her time."
- 'The Origin Of The Family, Private Property And The State'.
"And what is impossible to science?"
"Everything must justify its existence before the judgment seat of Reason, or give up existence."
"Ideas often kindle each other, like electrical sparks."
"Without analysis, no synthesis."
- 'Anti-Dühring: Herr Eugen Dühring's Revolution In Science'.
"Terror consists mostly of useless cruelties perpetrated by frightened people in order to reassure themselves."
"The new facts made imperative a new examination of all past history."
"Love affairs in a modern sense occurred in classical times only outside of official society."
"Production has become a social act."
"Competition is the completest expression of the battle of all against all which rules in modern civil society."
"...in pure mathematics the mind deal only with its own creations and imaginations."
Friedrich Engels Quotes On Leadership
Here are some significant Friedrich Engels quotes on natural leadership.
"Actually, each mental image of the world system is and remains limited, objectively by the historical situation and subjectively by its author's physical and mental constitution."
"It is the Darwinian struggle of the individual for existence transferred from nature to society with intensified violence."
- 'Socialism: Utopian And Scientific'.
"Freedom does not consist in any dream of independence from natural laws, but in the knowledge of these laws, and in the possibility this gives of systematically making them work towards definite ends."
- 'Anti-Dühring: Herr Eugen Dühring's Revolution In Science'.
"It is quite obvious that all legislation is calculated to protect those that possess property against those who do not."
-'The Condition Of The Working Class In England'.
"A revolution is certainly the most authoritarian thing there is; it is an act whereby one part of the population imposes its will upon the other part by means of rifles, bayonets and cannon, all of which are highly authoritarian means."
"Political economy came into being as a natural result of the expansion of trade, and with its appearance elementary, unscientific huckstering was replaced by a developed system of licensed fraud, an entire science of enrichment."
"For our workers in the big cities, freedom of movement is the prime condition of existence, and landownership can only be a fetter to them."
- 'The Housing Question'.
"The workers remain wage-workers — proletarians."
"The free development of each is the condition for the free development of all."
- 'The Communist Manifesto'.
"Darwin did not know what a bitter satire he wrote on mankind... when he showed that free competition, the struggle for existence, which the economists celebrate as the highest historical achievement, is the normal state of the animal kingdom."
"Only conscious organization of social production, in which production and distribution are carried on in a planned way, can lift mankind above the rest of the animal."
"In a political struggle of class against class, organization of trade unions is the most important weapon."
