Wisdom worth sharing, words worth remembering.
Even the most wretched individual of our present society could not exist and develop without the cumulative social efforts of countless generations.
Thence results for science as well as for industry the necessity of the division and association of labor. I receive and I give – such is human life. Each directs and is directed in his turn.
I am sure that on the one hand the Rothschilds appreciate the merits of Marx and that on the other hand Marx feels an instinctive inclination and a great respect for the Rothschilds.
A jealous lover of human liberty deeming it the absolute condition of all that we admire and respect in humanity I reverse the phrase of Voltaire and say that if God really existed it would be necessary to abolish him.
Idealism is the despot of thought just as politics is the despot of will.
I am conscious of my inability to grasp in all its details and positive developments any very large portion of human knowledge.
I listen to them freely and with all the respect merited by their intelligence their character their knowledge reserving always my incontestable right of criticism and censure.
To my utter despair I have discovered and discover every day anew that there is in the masses no revolutionary idea or hope or passion.
The freedom of all is essential to my freedom.
Freedom morality and the human dignity of the individual consists precisely in this that he does good not because he is forced to do so but because he freely conceives it wants it and loves it.
I am truly free only when all human beings men and women are equally free. The freedom of other men far from negating or limiting my freedom is on the contrary its necessary premise and confirmation.
Such a faith would be fatal to my reason to my liberty and even to the success of my undertakings it would immediately transform me into a stupid slave an instrument of the will and interests of others.