Max Weber
Max Weber
Karl Emil Maximilian "Max" Weberwas a German sociologist, philosopher, jurist, and political economist whose ideas profoundly influenced social theory and social research. Weber is often cited, with Émile Durkheim and Karl Marx, as among the three founders of sociology...
NationalityGerman
ProfessionPhilosopher
Date of Birth21 April 1864
CountryGermany
religious emotional class
The purely emotional form of Pietism is, as Ritschl has pointed out, a religious dilettantism for the leisure class.
reality vanity enemy
Daily and hourly, the politician inwardly has to overcome a quite trivial and all-too-human enemy: a quite vulgar vanity.
government defining action
The great virtue of bureaucracy - indeed, perhaps its defining characteristic ~ was that it was an institutional method for applying general rules to specific cases, thereby making the actions of government fair and predictable.
destiny men sight
It is true that the path of human destiny cannot but appal him who surveys a section of it. But he will do well to keep his small personal commentarie to himself, as one does at the sight of the sea or of majestic mountains, unless he knows himself to be called and gifted to give them expression in artistic or prophetic form. In most other cases, the voluminous talk about intuition does nothing but conceal a lack of perspective toward the object, which merits the same judgement as a similar lack of perspective toward men.
causes favour hypothesis
Whenever known and sufficient causes are available, it is anti-scientific to discard them in favour of a hypothesis that can never be verified.
organization office hierarchy
The organization of ofices follows the principle of hierarchy ... each lower office is under the control and supervision of a higher one
men hands everyday-routine
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.
cells order everyday
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. This order is now bound to the technical and economic conditions of machine production which to-day determine the lives of all the individuals who are born into this mechanism, not only those directly concerned with economic acquisition, with irresistible force. Perhaps it will so determine them until the last ton of fossilized coal is burnt.
writing achievement pieces
Not everyone realises that to write a really good piece of journalism is at least as demanding intellectually as the achievement of any scholar.
thinking age months
No sociologist should think himself too good, even in his old age, to make tens of thousands of quite trivial computations in his head and perhaps for months at a time.
leader charisma knows
Charisma is the gift from above where a leader knows from inside himself what to do.
science fulfillment questioning
Every scientific fulfillment raises new questions; it asks to be surpassed and outdated.
men wish doe
Man does not by nature wish to earn more and more money.
unique organization unity
A fully developed bureaucratic mechanism stands in the same relationship to other forms as does the machine to the non-mechanical production of goods. Precision, speed, clarity, documentary ability, continuity, discretion, unity, rigid subordination, reduction of friction and material and personal expenses are unique to bureaucratic organization.