A person is not merely a single subject distinguished from all the others. It is especially a being to which is attributed a relative autonomy in relation to the environment with which it is most immediately in contact. — Emile Durkheim Copy Share Image
Man seeks to learn, and man kills himself because of the loss of cohesion in his religious society; he does not kill himself because… — Emile Durkheim Copy Share
Irrespective of any external, regulatory force, our capacity for feeling is in itself an insatiable and bottomless abyss. — Emile Durkheim Copy Share
Man's characteristic privilege is that the bond he accepts is not physical but moral; that is, social. He is governed not by a material… — Emile Durkheim Copy Share
It is only by historical analysis that we can discover what makes up man, since it is only in the course of history that… — Emile Durkheim Copy Share
There is no sociology worthy of the name which does not possess a historical character. — Emile Durkheim Copy Share
The liberal professions, and in a wider sense the well-to-do classes, are certainly those with the liveliest taste for knowledge and the most active… — Emile Durkheim Copy Share
If religion has given birth to all that is essential in society, it is because the idea of society is the soul of religion. — Emile Durkheim Copy Share
The man whose whole activity is diverted to inner meditation becomes insensible to all his surroundings. — Emile Durkheim Copy Share
Man is a moral being, only because he lives in society. Let all social life disappear and morality will disappear with it. — Emile Durkheim Copy Share
One does not advance when one walks toward no goal, or - which is the same thing - when his goal is infinity. — Emile Durkheim Copy Share
The roles of art, morality, religion, political faith, science itself are not to repair organic exhaustion nor to provide sound functioning of the organs.… — Emile Durkheim Copy Share
One cannot long remain so absorbed in contemplation of emptiness without being increasingly attracted to it. In vain, one bestows on it the name… — Emile Durkheim Copy Share
The man whose whole activity is diverted to inner meditation becomes insensible to all his surroundings. His passions are mere appearances, being sterile. They… — Emile Durkheim Copy Share
By definition, sacred beings are separated beings. That which characterizes them is that there is a break of continuity between them and the profane… — Emile Durkheim Copy Share
For a long time it has been known that the first systems of representations with which men have pictured to themselves the world and… — Emile Durkheim Copy Share
