Karl Marx

"The needy animal knows how much it
needs, but the needy man does not."

Funny, this is not a Marx quote, rather an undefined quote from the era of Democritus, a pre-socratic Greek philoshopher born in 450 B.C. He hypothesized that different tastes were a result of differently shaped atoms in contact with the tongue. Smells and sounds could be explained similarly. Vision works by the eye receiving "images" or "effluences" of bodies that are emanated.

The Greeks were so deep and scholars like Karl Marx studied them, who's background includes being quite the indulgent; a side that most of us can idenditfy with. While in college he joined the Trier Tavern Club drinking society and at one point served as its president. His grades even suffered as a result, before recieving his doctorate in 1841 from Friedrich-Whilhelms-Universitat in Berlin. The dude can't be half bad.

Democritus was one of Marx's influences, as was Epicurus, another greek philosopher who's philosophy was to attain the happy, tranquil life, characterized by the absence of pain and fear, and by living a self-sufficient life surrounded by friends. Marx's thesis, The Difference Between the Democritean and Epicurean Philosophy of Nature was quite compelling and pissed off the faculty enough to be labled a radical Hegelian, the concept that (A) ideology conflicting with its (B) opposite ideology = (C) a new and sometimes better philosophy.

Keep this in mind. These guys got it figured out all ready.