Quotes from Reinhard Bendix

Men make their own history; but they make it under given conditions, and they become entangled thereby in a fate which is in part the result of other men having made their own history earlier.

Every idea that is articulated becomes a political idea because it is always objectified within an existing community.

If we want people to think, we must also want their thoughts to be communicated; and we must support a political constitution that confirms the public nature of thought.

History is a struggle between the "old" right that intended to be just and the "new" that promises to be.

Each life is a history of affinities through which we find ourselves and are "defined" by others.

Men make their own history; but they make it under given conditions, and they become entangled thereby in a fate which is in part the result of other men having made their own history earlier.

It is in the nature of society to secure and defend the conditions of its own existence even against its members.

Reason is a necessary instrument, to be used for good or evil, but it has no moral qualities.

The autonomy of the state is so great as to suggest a permanent will wholly independent of the will of individuals who are its current members.

Looking backward always presents an overdetermined depiction of fate; by this perspective we leave out of focus the possibilities of action which existed at the time.

The collective pursuit of private ends, on the other hand, is not necessarily incompatible with an increase of central government, because today voluntary associations frequently demand more rather than less government action in contrast to the medieval estates whose effort to extend their jurisdictions was often synonymous with resistance to administrative interference from the outside.

An idea that is not expressed, that is not or cannot be communicated, is no idea at all.

Looking backward always presents an overdetermined depiction of fate; by this perspective we leave out of focus the possibilities of action which existed at the time.