“religion is the opium of the masses�

[Monty Cantsin]

everyone knows the quote “religion is the opium of the masses” but what most people dont know is that marx never said that (atleast from my understanding). what he really said was this -

“Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions.
It is the opium of the people.” from Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right. Introduction by karl marx

which implys the misquote but goes further, my question to you guys/gals is did marx ever directly write or been documented as saying that line?

[rahul]

i read that in one of the quotations book below which marx's name was written.....

i 've seen those same words(in telugu(my language)) on the walls of my town
below which marx's name was written.

[viva le revolution]

It's true, Marx never really said that. In reality he described how religious teachings were expoited by capitalists to keep the proletariat down, with the help of imperialist church leaders in the early days of capitalism.
For example the teaching that inequalities are part of god's divine plan was used shamelessly by the imperialists to justify their own wealth and hoardings, accumulated by the indiscriminate exploitation of the worker.
The concept of reward in the next life for tolerance showed in this one was also used by the Capitalist to supress the frustrations of the alienated worker, thus in turn crushing any last vestige of the revolutionary in the proletariat.