Value, therefore, does not stalk about with a label describing what it is.

There is a physical relation between physical things. But it is different with commodities.

A commodity appears, at first sight, a very trivial thing, and easily understood.Its analysis shows that it is, in reality, a very queer thing, abounding in metaphysical subtleties and theological niceties.

The whole mystery of commodities, all the magic and necromancy that surrounds the products of labor as long as they take the form of commodities, vanishes therefore, so soon as we come to other forms of production.

Gold is now money with reference to all other commodities only because it was previously, with reference to them, a simple commodity.

Every commodity is compelled to chose some other commodity for its equivalent.

Wherever the want of clothing forced them to it, the human race made clothes for thousands of years, without a single man becoming a tailor.

To discover the various use of things is the work of history.

The commodity is first of all, an external object, a thing which through its qualities satisfies human needs of whatever kind. The nature of these needs, whether they arise, for example, from the stomach, or the imagination, makes no difference. Nor does it matter here how the thing satisfies man's need, whether directly as a means of subsistence, i.e. an object of consumption, or indirectly as a means of production.

The most violent, mean and malignant passions of the human breast, the Furies of private interest.