"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 cannot with impunity try to transfer this task entirely to mechanical assistants if one wishes to figure something, even though the final result is often small indeed."

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

"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."

"It is not accidental that our greatest art is intimate and not monumental."