Love and Capital Quotes

“…his love for children was often remarked on by friends and family. Liebknecht recalled that during the Soho years, when his own family had nothing, Marx would often trail off in midsentence if he saw a neglected child on the street. As broke as he was if he had a penny or ha’penny he would slip it into the child’s hand. If his pocket was empty he would offer comfort by speaking gently to the youngster and stroking his or her head. In later years he could often be seen on the Heath trailed by a gaggle of children who apparently saw in this stern revolutionary an apparition of Father Christmas…”
― Mary Gabriel, Love and Capital: Karl and Jenny Marx and the Birth of a Revolution

“The man who stands in dependence on another is no longer a man at all, he has lost his standing, he is nothing but the possession of another man.”
― Mary Gabriel, Love and Capital: Karl and Jenny Marx and the Birth of a Revolution

“1848…..they returned to Cologne to begin a new working-class group there. By April it had eight thousand members. Almost immediately, Marx disagreed with its leader Gottschalk over tactics. Gottschalk preferred explosive rhetoric about worker’s rights and arming a people’s militia, communist notions that terrified the middle classes of Germany who were afraid the rights just won would be lost with a revolt by the more numerous lower classes. Marx, however, believed that although the pace of change was frustrating, historical development was slow, and before there could be proletariat rule, there had to be middle-class rule. In any case, a proletariat ‘class’ barely existed in Germany. The number of people who labored with their hands was great, but they were disorganized and did not as yet recognize their own strength. To support the ultimate goal of that group, Marx believed one had to work for middle-class democracy. Viewing upcoming elections as just such an opportunity, he encouraged participation to ensure by democratic candidates over reactionaries who would roll back on reforms. Marx further believed that any newspaper he and his associates published In Colgne had to be democratic not communist, because in Germany democracy was the ideology with the greater immediate potential. If they had chosen to produce an ultra-radical newspaper, Engels said, ‘there was nothing left for us to do but to preach communism in a little provincial sheet and to found a tiny sect instead of a great party of action.’ The pragmatic approach was not unlike the one Marx had taken during his tenure as editor…”
― Mary Gabriel, Love and Capital: Karl and Jenny Marx and the Birth of a Revolution

“Word arrived of an uprising in the Prussian region of Silesia. For the likes of Marx and the workers in Paris this was electrifying as a portent of what was to come.
On June 4th 1844, driven mad by their misery, a group of weavers marched on the home of a pair of Prussian industrialist brothers, demanding higher pay, and singing, “You villains all, You hellish drones / You knaves in Satan’s raiment!/ You gobble all the poor man owns / Our curses be your payment!”
The protestors were beyond desperate, beyond furious. Men, women and children had been subjected to such low wages that some of the workers had starved. Their demands denied, the enraged weavers stormed the house and destroyed it….”
― Mary Gabriel, Love and Capital: Karl and Jenny Marx and the Birth of a Revolution

“As intellectuals they were brilliant, incisive, prescient, and creative (but also elitist, cantankerous, impatient, and conspiratorial). As friends they were bawdy, foulmouthed, and adolescent. They loved to smoke (Engels a pipe, Marx cigars), drink until dawn (Engels fine wine and ale, Marx whatever was available), gossip (mostly about the sexual proclivities of their acquaintances), and roar with laughter (usually at the expense of their enemies, and in Marx’s case until tears streamed down his cheeks).”
― Mary Gabriel, Love and Capital: Karl and Jenny Marx and the Birth of a Revolution