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Quotes from The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism — Max Weber

1864–1920 Germany

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5 quotes

"Rationalism" is a historical concept that contains within itself a world of contradictions.

The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1905)

Limitation to specialized work, with a renunciation of the Faustian universality of man which it involves, is a condition of any valuable work in the modern world.

The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1905)

Luther understands monasticism as a product of an egoistic lovelessness that withdraws from one's duties in the world. By contrast, this-worldly work in a vocation appears to him to be a visible expression of brotherly love, a notion he anchors in a highly unrealistic manner indeed and in contrast—almost grotesquely—to the well-known passages of Adam Smith.

The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1905)

Modern capitalism has as little use for liberum arbitrium [undisciplined] persons as laborers as it has for the businessman fully without scruples in the running of his company.

The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1905)

Above all, as will be repeatedly apparent in the sections below, fundamental for our discussion is the investigation of the idea of a testifying to one's belief as the psychological point of origin for methodical ethics.

The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1905)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Max Weber (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.