Emile Durkheim

Man seeks to learn, and man kills himself because of the loss of cohesion in his religious society; he does not kill…

— Emile Durkheim

Irrespective of any external, regulatory force, our capacity for feeling is in itself an insatiable and bottomless abyss.

— Emile Durkheim

Man's characteristic privilege is that the bond he accepts is not physical but moral; that is, social. He is governed not by…

— Emile Durkheim

It is only by historical analysis that we can discover what makes up man, since it is only in the course of…

— Emile Durkheim

There is no sociology worthy of the name which does not possess a historical character.

— Emile Durkheim

The liberal professions, and in a wider sense the well-to-do classes, are certainly those with the liveliest taste for knowledge and the…

— Emile Durkheim

If religion has given birth to all that is essential in society, it is because the idea of society is the soul…

— Emile Durkheim

The man whose whole activity is diverted to inner meditation becomes insensible to all his surroundings.

— Emile Durkheim

Man is a moral being, only because he lives in society. Let all social life disappear and morality will disappear with it.

— Emile Durkheim

One does not advance when one walks toward no goal, or - which is the same thing - when his goal is…

— Emile Durkheim

The roles of art, morality, religion, political faith, science itself are not to repair organic exhaustion nor to provide sound functioning of…

— Emile Durkheim

One cannot long remain so absorbed in contemplation of emptiness without being increasingly attracted to it. In vain, one bestows on it…

— Emile Durkheim

The man whose whole activity is diverted to inner meditation becomes insensible to all his surroundings. His passions are mere appearances, being…

— Emile Durkheim

By definition, sacred beings are separated beings. That which characterizes them is that there is a break of continuity between them and…

— Emile Durkheim

For a long time it has been known that the first systems of representations with which men have pictured to themselves the…

— Emile Durkheim

The totality of beliefs and sentiments common to the average members of a society forms a determinate system with a life of…

— Emile Durkheim

“...Solidarity is, literally something which the society possesses.”

— Emile Durkheim

I can be free only to the extent that others are forbidden to profit from their physical, economic, or other superiority to…

— Emile Durkheim

The individual can maintain himself in a society definitely organized only through possessing an equally definite mental and moral constitution. This is…

— Emile Durkheim

At this point, an urgent question arises: [...] Is it our duty to seek to become a thorough and complete human being,…

— Emile Durkheim

Our excessive tolerance with regard to suicide is due to the fact that, since the state of mind from which it springs…

— Emile Durkheim

There is no society known where a more or less developed criminality is not found under different forms. No people exists whose…

— Emile Durkheim

Science cannot describe individuals, but only types. If human societies cannot be classified, they must remain inaccessible to scientific description.

— Emile Durkheim

Faith is not uprooted by dialectic proof; it must already be deeply shaken by other causes to be unable to withstand the…

— Emile Durkheim

“Crime brings together honest men and concentrates them.”

— Émile Durkheim