The fully developed bureaucratic apparatus compares with other organisations exactly as does the machine with the non-mechanical modes of production.

Charisma is the gift from above where a leader knows from inside himself what to do.

The impulse to acquisition, pursuit of gain, of money, of the greatest possible amount of money, has in itself nothing to do with capitalism. This impulse exists and has existed among waiters, physicians, coachmen, artists, prostitutes, dishonest officials, soldiers, nobles, crusaders, gamblers, and beggars.

The decisive means for politics is violence.

In a democracy the people choose a leader in whom they trust. Then the chosen leader says, 'Now shut up and obey me.' People and party are then no longer free to interfere in his business.

Ideas come when we do not expect them, and not when we are brooding and searching at our desks. Yet ideas would certainly not come to mind had we not brooded at our desks and searched for answers with passionate devotion.

The summum bonum of this [Puritan] ethic is the earning of more and more money combined with the strict avoidance of all enjoyment.