"Here I stand, I can do no other"

"For truly, although politics is something done with the head, it is certainly not something done with the head alone. On this point the conviction-moralists are entirely correct. But whether one ought to act on the basis of an ethics of conviction or one of responsibility, and when one should do the one or the other, these are not things about which one can give instructions to anybody. There is just one thing one can say in these times of excitement - not, you believe, a thing one can say in these times of excitement - not, you believe, a 'sterile' form of excitement (although excitement is not always the same as true passion) - if, suddenly, conviction-politicians spring up all around, proclaiming, 'The world is stupid and base (gemein), not I. Responsibility for the consequences does not fall on me but on the others, in whose service I work and whose stupidity or baseness I shall eradicate', then I say plainly that I want to know how much inner weight is carried by this ethic of conviction. For it is my impression that, in nine out of ten, I am dealing with windbags, people who are intoxicated with romantic sensations but who do not truly feel what they are taking upon themselves. Such conduct hold little human interest for me and it most certainly does not shake me to the core. On the other hand it is immensely moving when a mature person (whether old or young) who feels with his whole soul the responsibility he bears for the real consequences of his actions, and who acts on the basis of an ethics of responsibility, says at some point, 'Here I stand, I can do no other.' That is something genuinely human and profoundly moving. For it must be possible for each of us to find ourselves in such a situation at some point if we are not inwardly dead. In this respect, the ethics of conviction and the ethics of responsibility are not absolute opposites. They are complementary to one another, and only in combination do they produce the true human being who is capable of having a 'vocation for politics'.

- Max Weber
"The Profession and Vocation of Politics"
367-368