Max Horkheimer

Whoever is not prepared to talk about capitalism should also remain silent about fascism,

— Max Horkheimer

Philosophy is overwhelmingly complicated, its procedure depressingly slow.

— Max Horkheimer

The inversion of external compulsion into the compulsion of conscience ... produces the machine-like assiduity and pliable allegiance required by the new rationality.

— Max Horkheimer

The complexity of the connection between the world of perception and the world of physics does not preclude that such a connection…

— Max Horkheimer

A revolutionary career does not lead to banquets and honorary titles, interesting research and professorial wages. It leads to misery, disgrace, ingratitude,…

— Max Horkheimer

With the abolition of otium and of the ego no aloof thinking is left. ... Without otium philosophical thought is impossible, cannot…

— Max Horkheimer

Pragmatism ... reflects with almost disarming candor the spirit of the prevailing business culture, the very same attitude of 'being practical' as…

— Max Horkheimer

Whoever desires to live among men has to obey their laws this is what the secular morality of Western civilization comes down…

— Max Horkheimer

The more the concept of reason becomes emasculated, the more easily it lends itself to ideological manipulation and to propagation of even…

— Max Horkheimer

The quality of the human that precludes identifying the individual with the class is 'metaphysical' and has no place in empiricist epistemology.…

— Max Horkheimer

The pleasure a man gets from a landscape would [not] last long if he were convinced a priori that the forms and…

— Max Horkheimer

The facts which our senses present to us are socially performed in two ways: through the historical character of the object perceived…

— Max Horkheimer

In the face of the idea that truth might afford the opposite of satisfaction and turn out to be completely shocking to…

— Max Horkheimer

In most cases, to be reasonable means not to be obstinate, which in turn points to conformity with reality as it is.…

— Max Horkheimer

When the great religious and philosophical conceptions were alive, thinking people did not extol humility and brotherly love, justice and humanity because…

— Max Horkheimer

The world is so possessed by the power of what is and the efforts of adjustment to it, that the adolescent's rebellion,…

— Max Horkheimer

Spinoza , for example, thought that insight into the essence of reality, into the harmonious structure of the eternal universe, necessarily awakens…

— Max Horkheimer

If the subjectivist view hold true, thinking cannot be of any help in determining the desirability of any goal in itself. The…

— Max Horkheimer

“Although most people never overcome the habit of berating the world for their difficulties, those who are too weak to make a…

— Max Horkheimer

As soon as a thought or word becomes a tool, one can dispense with actually 'thinking' it, that is, with going through…

— Max Horkheimer

Reason as an organ for perceiving the true nature of reality and determining the guiding principles of our lives has come to…

— Max Horkheimer

When even the dictators of today appeal to reason, they mean that they possess the most tanks. They were rational enough to…

— Max Horkheimer

Notwithstanding their attacks on the basic conception of rationalism, on synthetic a priori judgments, that is, material propositions that cannot be contradicted…

— Max Horkheimer

Plato and his objectivistic successors ... preserved the awareness of differences that pragmatism has been invented to deny the difference between thinking…

— Max Horkheimer

Once the philosophical foundation of democracy has collapsed, the statement that dictatorship is bad is rationally valid only for those who are…

— Max Horkheimer

The disparagement of empirical evidence in favor of a metaphysical world of illusion has its origin in the conflicy between the emancipated…

— Max Horkheimer

The significance of God, cause, number, substance or soul consists, as James asserts, in nothing but the tendency of the given concept…

— Max Horkheimer

“Not only is domination paid for with the estrangement of human beings from the dominated objects. but the relationships of human beings,…

— Max Horkheimer

The pathfinders of modern thought did not derive what is good from the law. ... Their role in history was not that…

— Max Horkheimer

The Revolution won't happen with guns, rather it will happen incrementally, year by year, generation by generation. We will gradually infiltrate their…

— Max Horkheimer

At present, when the prevailing forms of society have become hindrances to the free expression of human powers, it is precisely the…

— Max Horkheimer

Subjective reason ... is inclined to abandon the fight with religion by setting up two different brackets, one for science and philosophy,…

— Max Horkheimer

Now that science has helped us to overcome the awe of the unknown in nature, we are the slaves of social pressures…

— Max Horkheimer

Calvin's theocentric irrationalism eventually revealed itself as the cunning to technocratic reason which had to shape its human material. Misery and the…

— Max Horkheimer

Reason has never really directed social reality, but now reason has been so thoroughly purged of any specific trend or preference that…

— Max Horkheimer

Pragmatism , in trying to turn experimental physics into a prototype of all science and to model all spheres of intellectual life…

— Max Horkheimer

The endeavor of scientific research to see events in their more general connection in order to determine their laws, is a legitimate…

— Max Horkheimer

Although the formulations of science now offer the most advanced knowledge of nature, men continue to use obsolete forms of thought long…

— Max Horkheimer