Nothing is worthy of man as man unless he can pursue it with passionate devotion.

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.

A highly developed stock exchange cannot be a club for the cult of ethics.

The organization of ofices follows the principle of hierarchy ... each lower office is under the control and supervision of a higher one

Either one lives for politics or one lives off politics.

[In] the realm of science, ... what we have achieved will be obsolete in ten, twenty or fifty years. That is the fate, indeed, that is the very meaning of scientific work. ... Every scientific "fulfillment" raises new "questions" and cries out to be surpassed rendered obsolete. Everyone who wishes to serve science has to resign himself to this.

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.