"It is above all the impersonal and economically rationalized (but for this very reason ethically irrational) character of purely commercial relationships that evokes the suspicion, never clearly expressed but all the more strongly felt, of ethical religions. For every purely personal relationship of man to man, of whatever sort and even including complete enslavement, may be subjected to ethical requirements and ethically regulated. This is true because the structures of these relationships depend upon the individual wills of the participants, leaving room in such relations for manifestations of the virtue of charity. But this is not the situation in the realm of economically rationalised relationships, where personal control is exercised in inverse ratio to the degree of rational differentiation of the economic structure."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Max Weber, Sociology of Religion (1922), pp. 216-217
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Charity
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Related Quotes
"Charity, by which God and neighbor are loved, is the most perfect friendship."
"It must be said that charity can, in no way, exist along with mortal sin."
"So give to the poor; I'm begging you, I'm warning you, I'm commanding you, I'm ordering you."
"If you see charity, you see the Trinity."
"Certainly it is a heaven upon earth to have a man's mind to move in charity, rest in providence, and turn upon the po…"
"In charity there is no excess."
"Careless their merits or their faults to scan, His pity gave ere charity began."
""But whom do I treat unjustly," you say, "by keeping what is my own?" Tell me, what is your own? What did you bring i…"
"Who are the greedy? Those who are not satisfied with what suffices for their own needs. Who are the robbers? Those wh…"
"No amount of money given in charity, nothing but the abandonment of this hateful trade, can atone for this great sin …"