Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living.

Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living. And just as they seem to be occupied with revolutionizing themselves and things, creating something that did not exist before, precisely in such epochs of revolutionary crisis they anxiously conjure up the spirits of the past to their service, borrowing from them names, battle slogans, and costumes in order to present this new scene in world history in time-honored disguise and borrowed language.

Lewis has written that "man makes history." Althusser unleashes a pamphlet at him maintaining that such is not the case: "Ce sont les masses qui font I'histoire." I challenge anyone to find a social scientist outside the Marxist camp who can seriously pose a problem of this type.

Man is made by the places in which he lives...

A man is worked upon by what he works on. He may carve out his circumstances, but his circumstances will carve him out as well.

Either history is really governed by laws, and in that case a truly human-activity is impossible, except perhaps in a technical sense; or human beings really make their own history, and then the task of theory will not be directed to discovering 'laws', but to the elucidation of the conditions with in which human activity unfolds.

"Man makes his history with the one hand and "holds it up" with the other."

I am a man, Jupiter, and each man must invent his own path.

Man is not fully conditioned and determined but rather determines himself whether he gives in to conditions or stands up to them. In other words, man is ultimately self-determining. Man does not simply exist but always decides what his existence will be, what he will become in the next moment.

An individual chooses and makes himself.

Mankind is made great or little by its own will.

CIRCUMSTANCES DON’T MAKE THE MAN, THEY ONLY REVEAL HIM TO HIMSELF

إن البشر يصنعون تاريخهم , لكنهم لا يصنعونه على هواهم , لا يصنعونه فى ظروف يختارونها بأنفسهم بل فى ظروف يواجهونها مباشرة .. تكون متعينة و موروثة من الماضى

Man is not fully conditioned and determined but rather determines himself whether he gives in to conditions or stands up to them.