No sociologist should think himself too good, even in his old age, to make tens of thousands of quite trivial computations in his head and perhaps for months at a time.

One can say that three pre-eminent qualities are decisive for the politician: passion, a feeling of responsibility, and a sense of proportion.

No sociologist should think himself too good, even in his old age, to make tens of thousands of quite trivial computations in his head and perhaps for months at a time.

Only he has the calling for politics who is sure that he will not crumble when the world from his point of view is too stupid or base for what he wants to offer. Only he who in the face of all this can say In spite of all! has the calling for politics.

Only by strict specialization can the scientific worker become fully conscious, for once and perhaps never again in his lifetime, that he has achieved something that will endure. A really definitive and good accomplishment is today always a specialized act.

The fate of our times is characterized by rationalization and intellectualization and, above all, by the disenchantment of the world.

'Culture' is a finite segment of the meaningless infinity of the world process, a segment on which human beings confer meaning and significance.

All knowledge of cultural reality, as may be seen, is always knowledge from particular points of view.

All research in the cultural sciences in an age of specialization, once it is oriented towards a given subject matter through particular settings of problems and has established its methodological principles, will consider the analysis of the data as an end in itself.

All the analysis of infinite reality which the finite human mind can conduct rests on the tacit assumption that only a finite portion of this reality constitutes the object of scientific investigation, and that only it is 'important' in the sense of being 'worthy of being known.'

Causal analysis provides absolutely no value judgment, and a value judgment is absolutely not a causal explanation.

Certainly all historical experience confirms the truth - that man would not have attained the possible unless time and again he had reached out for the impossible.

It is not astonishing that there are many journalists who have become human failures and worthless men. Rather, it is astonishing that, despite all this, this very stratum includes such a great number of valuable and quite genuine men, a fact that outsiders would not so easily guess.

It is not true that good can only follow from good and evil only from evil, but that often the opposite is true.

Not everyone realises that to write a really good piece of journalism is at least as demanding intellectually as the achievement of any scholar.

Only he has the calling for politics who is sure that he shall not crumble when the world from his point of view is too stupid or too base for what he wants to offer.

Politics is a strong and slow boring of hard boards.

Politics means striving to share power or striving to influence the distribution of power, either among states or among groups within a state.

Power is the chance to impose your will within a social context, even when opposed and regardless of the integrity of that chance.

Precision, speed, unambiguity, knowledge of files, continuity, discretion, unity, strict subordination, reduction of friction and of material and personal costs - these are raised to the optimum point in the strictly bureaucratic administration.

Social economic problems do not exist everywhere that an economic event plays a role as cause or effect - since problems arise only where the significance of those factors is problematical and can be precisely determined only through the application of methods of social-economics.

The career of politics grants a feeling of power. The knowledge of influencing men, of participating in power over them, and above all, the feeling of holding in one's hands a nerve fiber of historically important events can elevate the professional politician above everyday routine even when he is placed in formally modest positions.

The ethic of conviction and the ethic of responsibility are not opposites. They are complementary to one another.

The modern view of criminal justice, broadly, is that public concern with morality or expediency decrees expiation for the violation of a norm; this concern finds expression in the infliction of punishment on the evil doer by agents of the state, the evil doer, however, enjoying the protection of a regular procedure.

The primary task of a useful teacher is to teach his students to recognize 'inconvenient' facts - I mean facts that are inconvenient for their party opinions.

The 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.

Whenever known and sufficient causes are available, it is anti-scientific to discard them in favour of a hypothesis that can never be verified.

Within the confines of the lecture hall, no other virtue exists but plain intellectual integrity.

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.

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

The fate of our times is characterized by rationalization and intellectualization and above all by the disenchantment of the world.

It's the intellectual who transforms the concept of the world into the problem of meaning.

But the age of chivalry is gone. That of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded; and the glory of Europe is extinguished forever.

I grew up with art from the innocent age of ten - with art, but with no sense of identity.

Death comes not to the living soul, nor age to the loving heart.

I'm very pleased to be here. Let's face it, at my age I'm very pleased to be anywhere.

For example, UNICEF works with governments to change legislation such as in India where a law was passed raising the age of compulsory school completion to keep children in school and away from the workplace for longer.

I figured out it was a social thing, what women were allowed to do. At a very young age, I decided I was not going to follow women's rules.

I wish I knew at 14 not to put much thought into what other people my age said to me, cause we were all looking for the answers. So I wish I knew that other people really don't know any more than you do!

I believe very firmly that gay people of every stripe and age should be role models for all children, and that means interacting with them.

Donner likes what he does and enjoys being on a set. He doesn't have to do it, its not like he has to make the rent. When I get to be his age and still enjoy what I'm doing like him, I'd be lucky.

Does age matter? Time doesn't matter.

I realised from a very early age that God gave me a gift, and that gift was to run, and I wanted to use it to the best of my ability.

Looking back, I think we were all quite mature, surprisingly responsible. In earlier wars, boys of our age had just gone off to raise hell or enlist or both, but we stayed dutifully at our desks doing tomorrow's homework.

This is the patent age of new inventions for killing bodies, and for saving souls. All propagated with the best intentions.

Interest is the spur of the people, but glory that of great souls. Invention is the talent of youth, and judgment of age.

For me, having a child is a really great responsibility because you've got something there that is depending on you for information and love until a certain age when it goes to school.

I don't think at my age... you can start ruling people out in politics.

I figured my body always would be able to repair itself. I think all of us believe that - until you begin to age and get hit with deteriorating joints.