"The presuppositions with which we begin are not arbitrary ones, not dogmas, but are real presuppositions from which one can abstract only in one's imagination. We begin with real individuals, together with their actions and their material conditions of life, those in which they find themselves, as well as those which they have created through their own efforts. These presuppositions can, in other words, be confirmed in a purely empirical way."
"Men can be distinguished from the animals by consciousness, by religion, or by whatever one wants. They begin to distinguish themselves from the animals as soon as they begin to produce their means of life, a step which is determined by their physical organization. In producing their means of life, they indirectly produce their material life itself."
"The manner in which they produce their means of life depends in their first instance on the character of these means themselves, as they are found ready at hand and have to be reproduced. This form of production is not to be considered solely as a reproduction of the physical existence of the individuals. Rather it is a distinctive form of activity of these individuals, a distinctive form of expressing their life, a distinctive form of life of those very individuals. As individuals express their life, so they are. What they are, therefore, coincides with their production, both with what they produce and with how they produce. Thus, what individuals are depends on the material conditions of their production."
[Superstructure] - "The production of ideas, of concepts, of consciousness is at first directly interwoven with men's material activity and commerce: it is the language of real life. [...] Men are the producers of their notions and ideas, etc., but they are real, active men, conditioned by a definite development of their productive forces and by the relations that correspond to these forces, up to and including their most extended forms. Consciousness can never be anything other than the conscious being, and the being of men is their real life process."
"It is not consciousness that determines life, but life that determines consciousness."
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