---
title: "7 Concepts Quotes By Herbert Marcuse"
description: "7 Concepts quotes by Herbert Marcuse. Plus more from Herbert Marcuse and more Concepts sayings from other authors."
image: "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/694/herbert-marcuse-3589_abuse_obscenity-is-a-moral-concept-in-the-verb_909381.jpg"
---

> [Obscenity is a moral concept in the verbal arsenal of the Establishment, which abuses the term by applying it, not to expressions…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/herbert-marcuse/obscenity-is-a-moral-concept-in-the-verbal-arsenal-of-the-2/)

[Herbert Marcuse](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/herbert-marcuse/)

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/694/herbert-marcuse-3589_abuse_obscenity-is-a-moral-concept-in-the-verb_909381.jpg)

> [At the classical origins of philosophic thought, the transcending concepts remained committed to the prevailing separation between intellectual and manual labor to…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/herbert-marcuse/at-the-classical-origins-of-philosophic-thought-the-transcending/)

[Herbert Marcuse](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/herbert-marcuse/)

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/1fd/herbert-marcuse-3589_abstract_at-the-classical-origins-of-philosophic_1173721.jpg)

> [Many, and I think the determining, constitutive facts remain outside the reach of the operational concept. And by virtue of this limitation…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/herbert-marcuse/many-and-i-think-the-determining-constitutive-facts-remain-outside/)

[Herbert Marcuse](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/herbert-marcuse/)

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/046/herbert-marcuse-3589_analysis_many-and-i-think-the-determining-constit_1277085.jpg)

> [This (functional - E.W.) language controls by reducing the linguistic forms and symbols of reflection, abstraction, development, contradiction; by substituting images for…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/herbert-marcuse/this-functional-e-w-language-controls-by-reducing-the-linguistic/)

[Herbert Marcuse](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/herbert-marcuse/)

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/b8d/herbert-marcuse-3589_abstraction_this-functional-e-w-language-controls-by_1507784.jpg)

> [Where these reduced (operational - E.W.) concepts govern the analysis of the human reality, individual or social, mental or material, they arrive…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/herbert-marcuse/where-these-reduced-operational-e-w-concepts-govern-the-analysis-of/)

[Herbert Marcuse](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/herbert-marcuse/)

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/367/herbert-marcuse-3589_adjustment_where-these-reduced-operational-e-w-conc_2554257.jpg)

> [Precisely because Galilean science is, in the formation of its concepts, the technic of a specific Lebenswelt , it does not and…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/herbert-marcuse/precisely-because-galilean-science-is-in-the-formation-of-its/)

[Herbert Marcuse](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/herbert-marcuse/)

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/e63/herbert-marcuse-3589_concepts_precisely-because-galilean-science-is-in_2579897.jpg)

> [The ontological concept of truth is in the centre of a logic which may serve as a model of pre- technological rationality.…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/herbert-marcuse/the-ontological-concept-of-truth-is-in-the-centre-of-a-logic-which/)

[Herbert Marcuse](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/herbert-marcuse/)

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/063/herbert-marcuse-3589_behavior_the-ontological-concept-of-truth-is-in-t_2620895.jpg)

## Other authors on Concepts

## More by Herbert Marcuse

> [The strains and stresses suffered by the individual in society are grounded in the normal functioning of that society (and of the individual!) rather…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/herbert-marcuse/the-strains-and-stresses-suffered-by-the-individual-in-society-are/)

[Herbert Marcuse](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/herbert-marcuse/)

> [ \[Art\] can speak its own language only as long as the images are alive which refuse and refute the established order. ](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/herbert-marcuse/art-can-speak-its-own-language-only-as-long-as-the-images-are-alive/)

[Herbert Marcuse](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/herbert-marcuse/)

> [If man has learned to see and know what really is, he will act in accordance with truth, Epistemology is in itself ethics, and…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/herbert-marcuse/if-man-has-learned-to-see-and-know-what-really-is-he-will-act-in/)

[Herbert Marcuse](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/herbert-marcuse/)

> [Hypostatized into a ritual pattern, Marxian theory becomes ideology. But its content and function distinguish it from classical forms of ideology; it is not…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/herbert-marcuse/hypostatized-into-a-ritual-pattern-marxian-theory-becomes-ideology/)

[Herbert Marcuse](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/herbert-marcuse/)

> [Art cannot change the world, but it can contribute to changing the consciousness and drives of the men and women who could change the…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/herbert-marcuse/art-cannot-change-the-world-but-it-can-contribute-to-changing-the/)

[Herbert Marcuse](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/herbert-marcuse/)

> [That which is cannot be true.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/herbert-marcuse/that-which-is-cannot-be-true/)

[Herbert Marcuse](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/herbert-marcuse/)

> [The closed language does not demonstrate and explain it communicates decision, dictum, command. Where it defines, the definition becomes "separation of good from evil;"…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/herbert-marcuse/the-closed-language-does-not-demonstrate-and-explain-it-communicates/)

[Herbert Marcuse](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/herbert-marcuse/)

> [The apparatus defeats its own purpose if its purpose is to create a humane existence on the basis of a humanized nature.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/herbert-marcuse/the-apparatus-defeats-its-own-purpose-if-its-purpose-is-to-create-a/)

[Herbert Marcuse](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/herbert-marcuse/)

> [“As Hegel defines it: "Thinking is, indeed, essentially the negation of that which is before us." ... Reason is the negation of the negative.…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/herbert-marcuse/as-hegel-defines-it-thinking-is-indeed-essentially-the-negation-of/)

[Herbert Marcuse](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/herbert-marcuse/)

> [The precarious ontological link between Logos and Eros is broken, and scientific rationality emerges as essentially neutral.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/herbert-marcuse/the-precarious-ontological-link-between-logos-and-eros-is-broken-and/)

[Herbert Marcuse](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/herbert-marcuse/)

> [If mass communications blend together harmoniously, and often unnoticeably, art, politics, religion, and philosophy with commercials, they bring these realms of culture to their…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/herbert-marcuse/if-mass-communications-blend-together-harmoniously-and-often/)

[Herbert Marcuse](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/herbert-marcuse/)

> [This society turns everything it touches into a potential source of progress and exploitation, of drudgery and satisfaction, of freedom and of oppression.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/herbert-marcuse/this-society-turns-everything-it-touches-into-a-potential-source-of/)

[Herbert Marcuse](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/herbert-marcuse/)

> [Dialectical thought understands the critical tension between "is" and "ought" first as an ontological condition, pertaining to the structure of Being itself. However, the…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/herbert-marcuse/dialectical-thought-understands-the-critical-tension-between-is-and/)

[Herbert Marcuse](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/herbert-marcuse/)

> [Obscenity is a moral concept in the verbal arsenal of the establishment, which abuses the term by applying it, not to expressions of its…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/herbert-marcuse/obscenity-is-a-moral-concept-in-the-verbal-arsenal-of-the/)

[Herbert Marcuse](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/herbert-marcuse/)

> [“For "totalitarian" is not only a terroristic political coordination of society, but also a non-terroristic economic-technical coordination which operates through the manipulation of needs…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/herbert-marcuse/for-totalitarian-is-not-only-a-terroristic-political-coordination-of/)

[Herbert Marcuse](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/herbert-marcuse/)

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