"The 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, saying: "If I spend this much upon benevolent institutions, I thereby purchase the right not to be troubled any further, and you are bound thereby to stay in your dusky holes and not to irritate my tender nerves by exposing your misery. You shall despair as before, but you shall despair unseen."
React to this quote
More by Friedrich Engels
See allResonant Thoughts
"The concepts of purposive behavior and teleology have long been associated with a mysterious, self-perfecting or goal-seeking capacity or final cause, usually of superhuman or super-natural origin. To…"
"Barack and Michelle Obama arrived on the North Portico just before 10:00 a.m. Laura and I had invited them for a cup of coffee in the Blue Room, just as Bill and Hillary Clinton had done for us eight …"
Explore Further
Related Quotes
"Savages...are by nature rash. They have no middle gear. The middle gear of any man is self-discipline."
— John le Carré"The first Greek-speaking people in the southern Balkan Peninsula arrived in Macedonia, Thessaly, and Epirus…"
— David Noel Freedman"A good-natured woman...which is as much as you can expect from a friend's wife, whom you got acquainted wit…"
— Charles Lamb"All my life, I've wondered about life beyond the earth. On those countless other planets that we think circ…"
— Carl Sagan"In comparing civilized man with the animal world, one is as the Alpine traveller, who sees the mountains so…"
— Thomas Henry Huxley"Look for the kind of nature that suits your temperament. The motif should be observed more for shape and co…"
— Camille Pissarro