Karl Marx "Last Words"

Laurence Horn laurence.horn at YALE.EDU
Sat Dec 14 21:21:49 UTC 2013


On Dec 14, 2013, at 3:56 PM, Shapiro, Fred wrote:

> Karl Marx's "last words" are often said to have been "Last words are for fools who haven't said enough."  In a little quick research I see that the earliest occurrence in Google Books seems to be from a 1971 book.  Can anyone push back the first occurrence earlier than this?  I have not looked in any biographies of Marx.
>
> Fred Shapiro
> Editor
> YALE BOOK OF QUOTATIONS (Yale University Press)
>
and then there are his mentor Hegel's last words (after all Marx said, I'm informed, that Hegel had his dialectics upside-down and that he was there to put it right side up):

"Only one man has ever understood me, and he didn't understand me."

Unless those weren't his last words.

LH

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