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.

Puritanism carried the ethos of the rational organization of capital and labor. It took over from the Jewish ethic only what was adapted to this purpose.

Politics means striving to share power or striving to influence the distribution of power, either among states or among groups within a state.

Within the confines of the lecture hall, no other virtue exists but plain intellectual integrity.

Either one lives for politics or one lives off politics.

The decisive means for politics is violence.

Capitalism may even be identical with the restraint, or at least a rational tempering, of this irrational impulse. But capitalism is identical with the restraint, or at least a rational tempering, of this irrational impulse. But capitalism is identical with the pursuit of profit, and forever renewed profit, by means of continuous, rational, capitalistic enterprise.