Passages from sources, a few contemporary to Marx, some written by Marx, and some recent ones written by folks who've had the chance to extensively study his work.

ON HEGEL 1 Since I have found the Highest of things and the Depths of them also, Rude am I as a God, cloaked by the dark like a God. Long have I searched and sailed on Thought's deep billowing ocean; There I found me the Word: now I hold on to it fast. 2 Words I teach all mixed up into a devilish muddle, Thus, anyone may think just what he chooses to think; Never, at least, is he hemmed in by strict limitations. Bubbling out of the flood, plummeting down from the cliff, So are his Beloved's words and thoughts that the Poet devises; He understands what he thinks, freely invents what he feels. Thus, each may for himself suck wisdom's nourishing nectar; Now you know all, since I've said plenty of nothing to you! Early Literary Experiments 3 Kant and Fichte soar to heavens blue Seeking for some distant land, I but seek to grasp profound and true That which — in the street I find. 4 Forgive us epigrammatists For singing songs with nasty twists. In Hegel we're all so completely submerged, But with his Aesthetics we've yet to be Purged.” (First Line is title of the Poem, Marx, Berlin Period pre-nov10, 1837)

“TO THE MEDICAL STUDENTS Damned philistino-medico-student crew, The whole world's just a bag of bones to you. When once you've cooled the blood with Hydrogen, And when you've felt the pulse's throbbing, then You think, "I've done the most I'm able to. Man could be very comfortable, too. How clever of Almighty God to be So very well versed in Anatomy!" And flowers are all instruments to use, When they've been boiled down into herbal brews.” (First Line is title of the Poem, by Marx, written while in Berlin but before the November 10th Letter)

“They rest on the misunderstanding to the effect that Marx seeks to define where he only explains, and that one can generally look in Marx for fixed, cut-and-dried definitions that are valid for all time. It should go without saying that where things and their mutual relations are conceived not as fixed but rather as changing, their mental images, too, i.e. concepts, are also subject to change and reformulation; that they are not to be encapsulated in rigid definitions, but rather developed in their process of his- torical or logical formation” (Engels, preface to Capital Volume 3)

“When Marx has answered a question, he keeps looking for inconsistencies, often not confident in his own judgement” -Carl-Erich Vollgraf (one of the editors of MEGA2)

“Marx did not rush to judgement, or assume that what he had written…could simply be extended to Russia. Rather, as he later wrote, “in order to reach an informed judgement of the economic development of…Russia, I learned Russian and then spend several long years studying official publications and others…”” -Ian Angus “Marx and Engels and Russia’s Peasant Communes”

““Here it was, where Mrs Marx after the death of one of her children born in London, of little “Foexchen,” in 1852, wrote with her heart’s blood on a loose sheet of paper: “My grief was so great. It was the first child I lost And on the same sheet added some years later: “Alas! I did not suspect, then, what was in store for me, before which everything else would sink into nothingness!” She is speaking of the death of poor “Moosh.” A few months after Foxy’s death little Franciska died. And on one of the loose diary leaves, found only recently on sifting the papers, we read: On Easter of the same year, 1852, our poor little Francisca died of severe bronchitis. Three days the poor child was struggling with death. It suffered so much. Its little lifeless body rested in the small back room, we all moved together into the front room, and when night approached, we made our beds on the floor. There the three living children were lying at our side, and we cried about the little angel who rested cold and lifeless near us. The death of the dear child fell into the time of the most bitter poverty ... (The money for the burial of the child was missing.) I went to a French refugee living in the vicinity who had visited us shortly before. He at once gave me two pounds sterling with the friendliest sympathy. With this money the little coffin was purchased, in which my poor child now slumbers peacefully. It had no cradle when it entered the world, and the last little abode also was for a long time denied to it. What did we suffer, when it was carried away to its last place of rest!”” -From Liebknecht’s memoirs

Marx was a passionate smoker. Like everything else, he carried on smoking with impetuousness. English tobacco being too strong for him, he provided for himself, whenever he had any chance of doing so, cigars which he half-chewed in order to heighten the enjoyment or to have a double pleasure. As cigars are very dear in England, he was continually on the hunt for cheap brands. And what kind of stuff he secured in this way may be imagined; “cheap and nasty” is an English expression, and Marx’s cigars were consequently dreaded by his friends.” -From Liebknecht's Memoirs

“But at my first visit, when I saw him in his study in Maitland Park Road, he appeared before me, not as the indefatigable and unequaled socialist agitator, but as the man of learning. ... He would never allow anyone to arrange (really, to disarrange) his books and papers. The prevailing disorder was only apparent. In actual fact, everything was in its proper place, and without searching he could put his hand on any book or manuscript he wanted. Even when conversing, he would often stop to show a relevant passage or figure in the book itself. He was at one with his study, where the books and papers were as obedient to his will as were his own limbs.

He took no account of external symmetry when arranging his books. Quarto and octavo volumes and pamphlets were placed side by side; he arranged his books not according to size but according to content. To him books were intellectual tools, not luxuries. “They are my slaves,” he would say, “and must serve my will.” He had scant respect for their form, their binding, the beauty of paper or printing; he would turn down the corners of the pages, underline passages, and cover the margins with pencil marks.” (Lafargue memoirs)

“By September 25 ...Marx was at the point of selecting a title for his now two-hundred-page book. He suggested Da-Da-Vogt, an obscure reference to an Arab writer who was used by Napoleon in Algiers as Vogt had been used in Geneva. Marx said the meaning would become clear about halfway through the book,114 and in a letter to Engels defended the title, saying it “will PUZZLE your philistine, pleases me and fits in with my SYSTEM OF MOCKERY and CONTEMPT.”” (Garbiel, Love & Capital)

“For a long time I believed that it would be possible to overthrow the Irish regime by English working class ascendancy. I always expressed this point of view in the New York Tribune. Deeper study has now convinced me of the opposite. The English working class will never accomplish anything before it has got rid of Ireland. The lever must be applied in Ireland.” -letter from marx to engels, dec 11 1869