Marx himself, unlike his millions of devotees, knew perfectly well what his rubbishy improvisations about "dialectic" etc. are worth. In 1857 he had made certain statements in print about the course of the Indian Mutiny, then going on, and he writes to Engels about these as follows: "It's possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way." This quotation is from p. 152, Vol. 40 (!), of the Collected Works, (Lawrence and Wishart). It should be pasted over every door in every Arts faculty in the Western World. (Except that it is, alas, a little late for that.)
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David Stove, "A Farewell to Arts: Marxism, Semiotics and Feminism," Quadrant, May 1986Karl Marx
As to the Delhi affair, [i.e., the Indian Rebellion of 1857] it seems to me that the English ought to begin their retreat as soon as the rainy season has set in in real earnest. Being obliged for the present to hold the fort for you as the Tribune’s military correspondent I have taken it upon myself to put this forward. NB [nota bene; "take note"], on the supposition that the reports to date have been true. It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way.
Karl Marx
Marx claimed in Volume 1 [of Capital] that there was some interesting economics involved in a labor theory of value, and some believe his greatest fame in pure economics lies in his attempted analysis of "surplus value." Although he promised to clear up the contradiction between "price" and "value" in later volumes, neither he nor Engels ever made good this claim.
Karl Marx
it is absurd ... to hope that maybe another Newton may some day arise, to make intelligible to us even the genesis of but a blade of grass ("Dialectic of Teleological Judgment" §75)
Immanuel Kant
The old and oft-repeated proposition "Totum est majus sua parte" [the whole is larger than the part] may be applied without proof only in the case of entities that are based upon whole and part; then and only then is it an undeniable consequence of the concepts "totum" and "pars". Unfortunately, however, this "axiom" is used innumerably often without any basis and in neglect of the necessary distinction between "reality" and "quantity", on the one hand, and "number" and "set", on the other, precisely in the sense in which it is generally false.
Georg Cantor
So, ungentle reader, (as you and I value what we should ashamed—after witnessing a few minor circus-marvels—to call our "lives,") let us never be fooled into taking seriously that perfectly superficial distinction which is vulgarly drawn between the circus-show and "art" or "the arts." Let us not forget that every authentic "work of art" is in and of itself alive and that, however "the arts" may differ among themselves, their common function is the expression of that supreme alive-ness which is known as "beauty." This being so, our three ring circus is art—for to contend that the spectacle in question is not an authentic manifestation of "beauty" is as childish, as to dismiss the circus on the ground that it is "childish," is idiotic.
E. E. Cummings
Marx, Karl
Mary (mother of Jesus)
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