Whoever desires to live among men has to obey their laws this is what the secular morality of Western civilization comes down to. ... Rationality in the form of such obedience swallows up everything, even the freedom to think. — Max Horkheimer Copy Share Image
Philosophy is overwhelmingly complicated, its procedure depressingly slow. — Max Horkheimer Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
The endeavor of scientific research to see events in their more general connection in order to determine their laws, is a legitimate and useful… — Max Horkheimer Copy Share Image
Pragmatism ... reflects with almost disarming candor the spirit of the prevailing business culture, the very same attitude of 'being practical' as counter to… — Max Horkheimer Copy Share Image
At present, when the prevailing forms of society have become hindrances to the free expression of human powers, it is precisely the abstract branches… — Max Horkheimer Copy Share Image
The quality of the human that precludes identifying the individual with the class is 'metaphysical' and has no place in empiricist epistemology. The pigeon… — Max Horkheimer Copy Share Image
Whoever is not prepared to talk about capitalism should also remain silent about fascism, — Max Horkheimer Copy Share Image
Reason as an organ for perceiving the true nature of reality and determining the guiding principles of our lives has come to be regarded… — Max Horkheimer Copy Share Image
Subjective reason ... is inclined to abandon the fight with religion by setting up two different brackets, one for science and philosophy, and one… — Max Horkheimer Copy Share Image
In the face of the idea that truth might afford the opposite of satisfaction and turn out to be completely shocking to humanity at… — Max Horkheimer Copy Share Image
Although the formulations of science now offer the most advanced knowledge of nature, men continue to use obsolete forms of thought long discarded by… — Max Horkheimer Copy Share Image
Once the philosophical foundation of democracy has collapsed, the statement that dictatorship is bad is rationally valid only for those who are not its… — Max Horkheimer Copy Share Image
