"Religious distress is at the same time the expression of real distress and the protest against real distress. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of the heartless world, just as it is the spirit of a spiritless situation. The demand to give up illusions about its condition is the demand to give up a condition that needs illusions. Criticism has plucked the imaginary flower from the chain, not so that men will wear the chain without any fantasy or consolation, but that they will break the chain and cull the living flower."