Rational conduct on the basis of the idea of calling, was born... from the spirit of Christian asceticism. - Max Weber
...Material goods have gained an increasing and finally inexorable power over the lives of men as at no previous period in history. - Max Weber
As intellectualism suppresses belief in magic, the world's processes become disenchanted, lose the magical significance, and henceforth simply 'are' and 'happen' but no longer signify anything. - Max Weber
Bureaucracy develops the more perfectly, the more it is 'dehumanized', the more completely it succeeds in eliminating from business love, hatred, and all purely personal, irrational, and emotional elements which escape calculation. - Max Weber
The intellect, like all cultural values, has created an aristocracy based on the possession of rational culture and independent of all personal ethical qualities of man. The aristocracy of intellect is hence an unbrotherly aristocracy. - Max Weber