Friedrich Engels citáty

„Osobnosť človeka je charakterizovaná nielen tým, čo robí, ale i tým, ako to robí.“

—  Friedrich Engels

„Je láska radosť milencov z totožnosti, alebo z rozdielnosti?“

—  Friedrich Engels

„Tradícia je veľká brzdiaca sila, je to zotrvačná sila dejín. Ale je iba pasívna, a preto musí podľahnúť.“

—  Friedrich Engels

„Práca stvorila človeka.“

—  Friedrich Engels

„Práca je zdrojom všetkého bohatstva, hovoria politickí ekonómovia. Je ním -vedľa prírody, ktorá jej dodáva materiál, ktorý premieňa na bohatstvo. Ale je ešte nekonečne viac ako to. Je prvou základnou podmienkou všetkého ľudského života, a síce do takej miery, že v určitom zmysle musíme povedať: stvorila samotného človeka.“

—  Friedrich Engels

„Ľudia sú určovaní pomermi - ale poriadne im to odplácajú.“

—  Friedrich Engels

„Prostitúcia degraduje medzi ženami len tie nešťastné, ktoré jej podľahnú a aj tie zďaleka nie do tej miery, ako sa to obyčajne verí. Naproti tomu ponižuje charakter celého mužského sveta.“

—  Friedrich Engels

„How is it possible that the poorer classes can remain healthy and have a reasonable expectation of life under such conditions? What can one expect but that they should suffer from continual outbreaks of epidemics and an excessively low expectation of life? The physical condition of the workers shows a progressive deterioration.“

—  Friedrich Engels

The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844 (1845)

„Everywhere the proletariat develops in step with the bourgeoisie. In proportion, as the bourgeoisie grows in wealth, the proletariat grows in numbers.“

—  Friedrich Engels, kniha Principles of Communism

Principles of Communism (1847)
Kontext: Everywhere the proletariat develops in step with the bourgeoisie. In proportion, as the bourgeoisie grows in wealth, the proletariat grows in numbers. For, since the proletarians can be employed only by capital, and since capital extends only through employing labor, it follows that the growth of the proletariat proceeds at precisely the same pace as the growth of capital. Simultaneously, this process draws members of the bourgeoisie and proletarians together into the great cities where industry can be carried on most profitably, and by thus throwing great masses in one spot it gives to the proletarians a consciousness of their own strength. Moreover, the further this process advances, the more new labor-saving machines are invented, the greater is the pressure exercised by big industry on wages, which, as we have seen, sink to their minimum and therewith render the condition of the proletariat increasingly unbearable. The growing dissatisfaction of the proletariat thus joins with its rising power to prepare a proletarian social revolution.

„What each individual wills is obstructed by everyone else, and what emerges is something that no one willed.“

—  Friedrich Engels

Letter to Jean-Richard Bloch http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1890/letters/90_09_21.htm (September 21, 1890)

„Just as Marx used to say about the French Marxists of the late ’seventies: All I know is that I am not a Marxist.“

—  Friedrich Engels

Letter to Conrad Schmidt http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1890/letters/90_08_05.htm (August 5, 1890)

„We are now approaching a social revolution, in which the old economic foundations of monogamy will disappear just as surely as those of its complement, prostitution. Monogamy arose through the concentration of considerable wealth in one hand — a man's hand — and from the endeavor to bequeath this wealth to the children of this man to the exclusion of all others. This necessitated monogamy on the woman's, but not on the man's part. Hence this monogamy of women in no way hindered open or secret polygamy of men. Now, the impending social revolution will reduce this whole care of inheritance to a minimum by changing at least the overwhelming part of permanent and inheritable wealth—the means of production—into social property. Since monogamy was caused by economic conditions, will it disappear when these causes are abolished?
One might reply, not without reason: not only will it not disappear, but it will rather be perfectly realized. For with the transformation of the means of production into collective property, wagelabor will also disappear, and with it the proletariat and the necessity for a certain, statistically ascertainable number of women to surrender for money. Prostitution disappears and monogamy, instead of going out of existence, at last becomes a reality—for men also.
At all events, the situation will be very much changed for men. But also that of women, and of all women, will be considerably altered. With the transformation of the means of production into collective property the monogamous family ceases to be the economic unit of society. The private household changes to a social industry. The care and education of children become? a public matter. Society cares equally well for all children, legal or illegal. This removes the care about the "consequences" which now forms the essential social factor—moral and economic—hindering a girl to surrender unconditionally to the beloved man. Will not this be sufficient cause for a gradual rise of a more unconventional intercourse of the sexes and a more lenient public opinion regarding virgin honor and female shame? And finally, did we not see that in the modern world monogamy and prostitution, though antitheses, are inseparable and poles of the same social condition? Can prostitution disappear without engulfing at the same time monogamy?“

—  Friedrich Engels

The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State (1804) as translated by Ernest Untermann (1902); Full English text of The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1884/origin-family/index.htm - Full original-language German text of The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State http://www.mlwerke.de/me/me21/me21_025.htm

„People think they have taken quite an extraordinarily bold step forward when they have rid themselves of belief in hereditary monarchy and swear by the democratic republic. In reality, however, the state is nothing but a machine for the oppression of one class by another, and indeed in the democratic republic no less than in the monarchy.“

—  Friedrich Engels

Introduction to 1891 edition of Karl Marx's, The Civil War in France

„What will be the consequences of the ultimate disappearance of private property? Society will take all forces of production and means of commerce, as well as the exchange and distribution of products, out of the hands of private capitalists and will manage them in accordance with a plan based on the availability of resources and the needs of the whole society. In this way, most important of all, the evil consequences which are now associated with the conduct of big industry will be abolished. There will be no more crises; the expanded production, which for the present order of society is overproduction and hence a prevailing cause of misery, will then be insufficient and in need of being expanded much further. Instead of generating misery, overproduction will reach beyond the elementary requirements of society to assure the satisfaction of the needs of all; it will create new needs and, at the same time, the means of satisfying them. It will become the condition of, and the stimulus to, new progress, which will no longer throw the whole social order into confusion, as progress has always done in the past.“

—  Friedrich Engels, kniha Principles of Communism

Principles of Communism (1847)

„When all capital, all production, all exchange have been brought together in the hands of the nation, private property will disappear of its own accord, money will become superfluous, and production will so expand and man so change that society will be able to slough off whatever of its old economic habits may remain.“

—  Friedrich Engels

(1847)

„It makes unavoidably necessary an entirely new organization of society in which production is no longer directed by mutually competing individual industrialists but rather by the whole society operating according to a definite plan and taking account of the needs of all.“

—  Friedrich Engels

(1847)

„What will be the attitude of communism to existing nationalities? The nationalities of the peoples associating themselves in accordance with the principle of [[community will be compelled to mingle with each other as a result of this association and thereby to dissolve themselves, just as the various estate and class distinctions must disappear through the abolition of their basis, private property.“

—  Friedrich Engels

(1847)

„The Mercantile System still had a certain artless Catholic candour and did not in the least conceal the immoral nature of trade. … But when the economic Luther, Adam Smith, criticised past economics things had changed considerably. … Protestant hypocrisy took the place of Catholic candour.“

—  Friedrich Engels

Das Merkantilsystem hatte noch eine gewisse unbefangene, katholische Geradheit und verdeckte das unsittliche Wesen des Handels nicht im mindesten. ... Als aber der ökonomische Luther, Adam Smith, die bisherige Ökonomie kritisierte, hatten sich die Sachen sehr geändert. ... An die Stelle der katholischen Geradheit trat protestantische Gleisnerei.
Outlines of a Critique of Political Economy (1844)

„Democratic socialists are either proletarians who are not yet sufficiently clear about the conditions of the liberation of their class, or they are representatives of the petty bourgeoisie, a class which, prior to the achievement of democracy and the socialist measures to which it gives rise, has many interests in common with the proletariat. It follows that, in moments of action, the communists will have to come to an understanding with these democratic socialists, and in general to follow as far as possible a common policy with them – provided that these socialists do not enter into the service of the ruling bourgeoisie and attack the communists. It is clear that this form of co-operation in action does not exclude the discussion of differences.“

—  Friedrich Engels

(1847)