Money is a crystal formed of necessity in the course of the exchanges, whereby different products of labour are practically equated to one another an… - Karl Marx

It has drowned the most heavenly ecstasies of religious fervour, of chivalrous enthusiasm, of Philistine sentimentalism, in the icy water of egotistical calculation. It has resolved personal worth into exchange value, and in place of numberless indefeasible chartered freedoms, it has set up that single, unconscionable freedom — free trade. In one word, for exploitation, veiled by religious and political illusions, it has substituted naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation.

Religion is the impotence of the human mind to deal with occurrences it cannot understand.

The product of labour is labour which has been congealed in an object, which has become material: it is the objectification of labour. Labour's realization is its objectification.