Max Weber

The fate of our times is characterized by rationalization and intellectualization and, above all, by the 'disenchantment of the world.'

The Puritan wanted to work in a calling; we are forced to do so.

Man does not strive for profit because he is a capitalist, but he becomes a capitalist because he strives for profit.

The state is a human community that (successfully) claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory.

Not summer's bloom lies ahead of us, but rather a polar night of icy darkness and hardness, no matter which group may triumph externally now.

Bureaucracy is the means of transforming social action into rationally organized action.

The fully developed bureaucratic apparatus compares with other organizations exactly as does the machine with non-mechanical modes of production.

The 'spirit' of capitalism... is the attitude which seeks profit rationally and systematically.

The Puritan... wished to be a man of calling; we are compelled to be.

The more the 'world' is rationalized, the more it is disenchanted.

The decisive reason for the advance of the bureaucratic organization has always been its purely technical superiority over any other form of organization.

The Puritan wanted to work in a calling; we are forced to do so. For when asceticism was carried out of monastic cells into everyday life, and began to dominate worldly morality, it did its part in building the tremendous cosmos of the modern economic order.

The fully developed bureaucratic apparatus stands in the same relationship to other forms of organization as does the machine to non-mechanical modes of production.

The concept of the 'calling' (Beruf) is of Christian origin.

A 'vocation' (Beruf) is a task set by God.

The development of the modern state is identical with the development of modern bureaucracy.

The 'iron cage' of rationality.

The ultimate and most fundamental problem of all politics is the question of the legitimacy of domination.

The intellectual's 'calling' is to serve the truth, and nothing else.

The professional politician is one who lives 'off' politics, as a paid official, or 'for' politics, as a leader whose power rests on the voluntary support of his followers.