Freedom (n.) is the consciousness of necessity. Necessity is blind until it becomes conscious.
Freedom (n.) that exists only in theory is an illusion; real freedom needs, besides the will, very tangible material conditions — including the time and means even to occupy oneself with theory.
Freedom (n.) as civil society knows it is slavery in its most developed form, because the individual takes the uncurbed movement of his estranged property, industry and religion for his own freedom.
Freedom (n.) is, for the materialist, not the negative power to avoid this or that but the positive power to assert one's true individuality.
Freedom (n.) as a brave word of the bourgeoisie means something only against the fettered traders of the Middle Ages, and means nothing against the abolition of buying and selling itself.
Freedom (n.) consists in converting the state from an organ superimposed on society into one completely subordinate to it.
Freedom (n.) inside the realm of necessity can only mean that the associated producers govern their metabolism with nature rationally, instead of being ruled by it as by a blind power.
Freedom (n.) in this emancipation leaves man not freed from religion but given religious freedom, not freed from property but given freedom to own it, and not freed from the egoism of business but given freedom to engage in it.