An excerpt from the graduation essay of 17-year-old high school student Marx.
In these lines one can already feel the great Karl Marx, who would devote his life to the cause of liberating humanity from the private exploitation of capital:
“...the main leader who should guide us when choosing a profession is the good of humanity and at the same time our own improvement.
One should not think that both of these interests can become hostile, come into conflict with each other, that one of them must destroy the other.
Human nature is designed in such a way that a person can achieve his improvement only by working to improve his contemporaries, for their benefit.
If a person works only for himself, he can perhaps become a famous scientist, a great sage, an excellent poet, but he can never become a truly perfect and great person.
History recognizes those people as great who, working for a common goal, themselves became nobler.
If we have chosen a profession in which we can do the most work for humanity, then we will not bend under its burden, because it is a sacrifice for the sake of all.
Then we will experience not a pitiful, limited, selfish joy, but our happiness will belong to millions, then our deeds will live an eternally effective life, and hot tears of the same noble people will be shed over our ashes!”
K. Marx. “The reflections of a young man when choosing a profession.”
August 12, 1835