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.
Max WeberThe so-called materialistic conception of history, with the crude elements of genius of the early form which appeared, for instance, in the Communist Manifesto, still prevails only in the minds of laymen and dilettantes.
Max WeberIn the midst of a culture that is rationally organized for a vocational workaday life, there is hardly any room for the cultivation of acosmic brotherliness, unless it is among strata who are economically carefree. Under the technical and social conditions of rational culture, an imitation of the life of Buddha, Jesus, or Francis seems condemned to failure for purely external reasons.
Max Weber[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.
Max Weber