The individual can maintain himself in a society definitely organized only through possessing an equally definite mental and moral constitution. This is what the neuropath lacks. His state of disturbance causes him to be constantly taken by surprise by circumstances. — Emile Durkheim Copy Share Image
Man could not live if he were entirely impervious to sadness. Many sorrows can be endured only by being embraced, and the pleasure taken in them naturally has a somewhat melancholy character. — 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 Image
Irrespective of any external, regulatory force, our capacity for feeling is in itself an insatiable and bottomless abyss. — Emile Durkheim Copy Share Image
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 Image
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 Image
There is no sociology worthy of the name which does not possess a historical character. — Emile Durkheim Copy Share Image
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 Image
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 Image
The man whose whole activity is diverted to inner meditation becomes insensible to all his surroundings. — Emile Durkheim Copy Share Image
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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
