Society and the World

The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communist revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. Working men of all countries, unite!

In this sense, the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property.

In this sense, the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property.

What else does the history of ideas prove, than that intellectual production changes in character in proportion as material production is changed? The ruling ideas of each age have ever been the ideas of its ruling class.

What else does the history of ideas prove, than that intellectual production changes in character in proportion as material production is changed? The ruling ideas of each age have ever been the ideas of its ruling class.

The bourgeoisie has subjected the country to the rule of the towns. It has created enormous cities, has greatly increased the urban population as compared with the rural, and has thus rescued a considerable part of the population from the idiocy of rural life.

The bourgeoisie has subjected the country to the rule of the towns. It has created enormous cities, has greatly increased the urban population as compared with the rural, and has thus rescued a considerable part of the population from the idiocy of rural life.

The bourgeoisie, wherever it has got the upper hand, has put an end to all feudal, patriarchal, idyllic relations. It has pitilessly torn asunder the motley feudal ties that bound man to his “natural superiors,” and has left remaining no other bond between man and man than naked self-interest, than callous “cash payment.”

The bourgeoisie, wherever it has got the upper hand, has put an end to all feudal, patriarchal, idyllic relations. It has pitilessly torn asunder the motley feudal ties that bound man to his “natural superiors,” and has left remaining no other bond between man and man than naked self-interest, than callous “cash payment.”

The executive of the modern State is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie.

The centralization of the means of production and the socialization of labor reach a point at which they become incompatible with their capitalist integument. This integument is burst asunder. The knell of capitalist private property sounds. The expropriators are expropriated.

[The effect of capitalist development is to] distort the worker into a fragment of a man, . . . degrade him to the level of an appendage of a machine, they destroy the actual content of his labor by turning it into a torment.

My own contribution was: 1. to show that the existence of classes is merely bound up with certain historical phases in the development of production ; 2. that the class struggle necessarily leads to the dictatorship of the proletariat ; 3. that this dictatorship itself constitutes no more than a transition to the abolition of all classes and to a classless society .

[ Responding to a beach club telling him he couldn’t join because he was Jewish :] My son’s only half Jewish. Would it be all right if he went in the water up to his knees?

[ Rufus T. Firefly, played by Groucho Marx, speaking :] Will you marry me? Did he leave you any money? Answer the second question first.

[ Ambassador Tarentino, played by Louis Calhern, speaking :] This means war!

[ Groucho Marx speaking :] Come, Kapellmeister, let the violas throb! My regiment leaves at dawn.

[ Groucho Marx, replying to the comment, “You’re awfully shy for a lawyer” :] You bet I’m shy. I’m a shyster lawyer.

[ Groucho Marx speaking after a woman says, “I don’t like this innuendo” :] That’s what I always say. Love flies out the door when money comes innuendo.

[ Hammer, played by Groucho Marx, speaking :] Three years ago I came to Florida without a nickel in my pocket. And now I’ve got a nickel in my pocket.

[Our objective is to prevent] the annexation of the nations of our America by the unruly and brutal North which despises them. I have lived in the bowels of the beast and I know it from the inside.

[Our objective is to prevent] the annexation of the nations of our America by the unruly and brutal North which despises them. I have lived in the bowels of the beast and I know it from the inside.

It is from Italy that we launch through the world this violently upsetting incendiary manifesto of ours. With it, today, we establish Futurism , because we want to free this land from its smelly gangrene of professors, archaeologists, ciceroni , and antiquarians. For too long Italy has been a dealer in secondhand clothes. We mean to free her from the numberless museums that cover her like so many graveyards.

It is from Italy that we launch through the world this violently upsetting incendiary manifesto of ours. With it, today, we establish Futurism , because we want to free this land from its smelly gangrene of professors, archaeologists, ciceroni , and antiquarians. For too long Italy has been a dealer in secondhand clothes. We mean to free her from the numberless museums that cover her like so many graveyards.