Paul Lafargue

"Jehovah … gave his worshippers the supreme example of ideal laziness; after six days of work, he rests for all eternity."

"The blood of three oppressed races runs in my veins."

"I am proudest of my Negro extraction."

"When, in our civilized Europe, we would find a trace of the native beauty of man, we must go seek it in the nations where economic prejudices have not yet uprooted the hatred of work. … The Greeks in their era of greatness had only contempt for work: their slaves alone were permitted to labor: the free man knew only exercises for the body and mind. … The philosophers of antiquity taught contempt for work, that degradation of the free man, the poets sang of idleness, that gift from the Gods."

"Philanthropy means to steal wholesale, and give away retail."

"Arbeitet, arbeitet, Proletarier, vermehrt den Nationalreichthum und damit euer persönliches Elend. Arbeitet, um, immer ärmer geworden, noch mehr Ursache zu haben, zu arbeiten und elend zu sein. Das ist das unerbittliche Gesetz der kapitalistischen Produktion."

"Arbeitet, arbeitet, Proletarier, vermehrt den gesellschaftlichen Reichtum und damit euer persönliches Elend. Arbeitet, arbeitet, um, immer ärmer geworden, noch mehr Ursache zu haben, zu arbeiten und elend zu sein. Das ist das unerbittliche Gesetz der kapitalistischen Produktion."