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The Confucian aspirant to office, stemming from the old tradition, could hardly help viewing a specialized, professional training of European stamp as anything but a conditioning in the dirtiest Philistinism. ... The fundamental assertion, ‘a cultured man is not a tool’ meant that he was an end in himself and not just a means for a specified useful purpose.

— Max Weber Religion of China (1915)

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The more a religion is aware of its opposition in principle to economic rationalization as such, the more apt are the religion’s virtuosi to reject the world, especially its economic activities.

Sociology of Religion (1922)

Mysticism intends a state of "possession," not action, and the individual is not a tool but a "vessel" of the divine.

What interests us here is the assimilative power of the Hindu life order due to its legitimation of social rank.

Religion of India (1916)

The ultimately possible attitudes toward life are irreconcilable, and hence their struggle can never be brought to a final conclusion.

For the true mystic the principle continues to hold: the creature must be silent so that God may speak.

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Max Weber (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.