“ Throughout this book I have tried to point out why interest, especially as it has been used by people such as Hume, Smith, Tocqueville, and Weber, is still a very useful concept. One reason why the co… Richard Swedberg
“ In a democracy the people choose a leader in whom they trust. Then the chosen leader says, 'Now shut up and obey me.' People and party are then no longer free to interfere in his business. Max Weber
“ Weber also saw that a bureaucratic world contained risks. It produced increasingly powerful and autonomous bureaucrats who could be spiritless, driven only by impersonal rules and procedures, and with… Michael Barnett
“ Max Weber was right in subscribing to the view that one need not be Caesar in order to understand Caesar. But there is a temptation for us theoretical sociologists to act sometimes as though it is not… Robert K. Merton
“ Very few politicians, who have chosen a political career, can fulfill the aspirations and survive the strains of an elevated office that in a monarchy was filled so randomly. Each tsar had to be simul… Simon Sebag Montefiore
