Max Weber Bureaucracy Quotes & Sayings

The absorption of oxygen and the elimination of carbon dioxide in the lungs take place by diffusion alone. There is no trustworthy evidence of any regulation of this process on the part of the organism. — August Krogh

A slightly different version of the argument
this is really the core of Max Weber's reflections on the subject
is that a bureaucracy, once created, will immediately move to make itself indispensable to anyone trying to wield power, no matter what they wish to do with it. The chief way to do this is always by attempting to monopolize access to certain key types of information. — David Graeber

So, without saying anything to the others, it made its way to the farthest corner of the meadow and began to toast an imaginary muffin. That was always the best way to unwind when things got to be too much for it. — Thomas M. Disch

Gretchen shrugged. "After seeing how he acted when she almost died, I'm starting to get why she's with him." Then her voice hardened. "And really, Leila. That's twice now. — Jeaniene Frost

However many people complain about the "red tape," it would be sheer illusion to think ... continuous administrative work can be carried out in any field except by means of officials working in offices ... The choice is only that between bureaucracy and dillettantism. — Max Weber

I once tried being dramatic when I was fourteen. My mother told me to add it to the calendar. — Penny Reid

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. — Max Weber

I take it to heart that, for example, there aren't enough funds for AIDS research, but people pay 20 times the value of an item of clothing. — Azzedine Alaia

Our little Spaceship Earth is only eight thousand miles in diameter, which is almost a negligible dimension in the great vastness of space. — R. Buckminster Fuller

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 little regard for the people they were expected to serve. Weber famously warned that those who allow themselves to be guided by rules will soon find that those rules have defined their identities and commitments. — Michael Barnett

I don't think it is important to be a role model, because if you are a role model, you are pretending to be someone else. — Zendaya

As Max Weber long ago pointed out, once one sets up a genuinely effective bureaucracy, it's almost impossible to get rid of it. — David Graeber