Max Weber Quotes

The fully developed bureaucratic mechanism compares with other organizations exactly as does the machine with the non-mechanical modes of production.[Ein voll entwickelter bürokratischer Mechanismus verhält sich zu die­sen genau wie eine Maschine zu den nicht me­chanischen Arten der Gütererzeugung.]

The fate of our times is characterized by rationalization and intellectualization and, above all, by the disenchantment of the world.[Es ist das Schicksal unserer Zeit, mit der ihr eigenen Rationalisierung und Intellektualisierung, vor allem: Entzauberung der Welt.]

The fate of an epoch which has eaten of the tree of knowledge is that it must know that we cannot learn the meaning of the world from the results of its analysis, be it ever so perfect, it must rather be in a position to create this meaning itself. It must recognize that general views of life and the universe can never be the products of increasing empirical knowledge, and that the highest ideals, which move us most forcefully, are always formed only in the struggle with other ideals which are just as sacred to others as ours are to us.

The decisive means for politics is violence.[Für die Politik ist das entscheidende Mittel: die Gewaltsamkeit.]

The cultural problems which move men form themselves ever anew and in different colors, and the boundaries of that area in the infinite stream of concrete events which acquires meaning and significance for us.

The church domesticated medieval Europe by means of its system of confession and penance.[Die Kirche hat mit Hilfe ihrer Buß- und Beichtordnung das mittelalterliche Europa domestiziert.]

The career of politics grants a feeling of power. The knowledge of influencing men, of participating in power over them, and above all, the feeling of holding in one’s hands a nerve fiber of historically important events can elevate the professional politician above everyday routine even when he is placed in formally modest positions.

Social economic problems do not exist everywhere that an economic event plays a role as cause or effect – since problems arise only where the significance of those factors is problematical and can be precisely determined only through the application of methods of social-economics.

Power is the probability that one actor within a social relationship will be in a position to carry out his own will despite resistance, regardless of the basis on which this probability rests.[Macht bedeutet jede Chance, innerhalb einer sozialen Beziehung den eigenen Willen auch gegen Widerstreben durchzusetzen, gleichviel worauf diese Chance beruht.]

Politics is a strong and slow boring of hard boards. It takes both passion and perspective.[Die Politik bedeutet ein starkes, langsames Bohren von harten Brettern mit Leidenschaft und Augenmaß zugleich.]

Politics for us means striving to share power or striving to influence the distribution of power, either among states or among groups within a state.[»Politik« würde für uns also heißen: Streben nach Machtanteil oder nach Beeinflussung der Machtverteilung, sei es zwischen Staaten, sei es innerhalb eines Staates zwischen den Menschengruppen, die er umschließt.]

Only he has the calling for politics who is sure that he shall not crumble when the world from his point of view is too stupid or too base for what he wants to offer. Only he who in the face of all this can say ‘In spite of all!’ has the calling for politics.