Emile Durkheim

At first sight, one does not see what relations there can be between religion and logic.

— Emile Durkheim

Social life comes from a double source, the likeness of consciences and the division of social labour.

— Emile Durkheim

Socialism is not a science, a sociology in miniature: it is a cry of pain.

— Emile Durkheim

“Crime brings together honest men and concentrates them.”

— Émile Durkheim

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

— Emile Durkheim

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

— Emile Durkheim

When morals are sufficient, law is unnecessary; when morals are insufficient, law is unenforceable.

— Emile Durkheim

The first and most basic rule is to consider social facts as things.

— Emile Durkheim

Our whole social environment seems to us to be filled with forces which really exist only in our own minds.

— Emile Durkheim

An act cannot be defined by the end sought by the actor, for an identical system of behaviour may be adjustable to…

— Emile Durkheim

Man cannot become attached to higher aims and submit to a rule if he sees nothing above him to which he belongs.…

— Emile Durkheim

Religious phenomena are naturally arranged in two fundamental categories: beliefs and rites. The first are states of opinion, and consist in representations;…

— Emile Durkheim

“It is said that we do not make the guilty party suffer for the sake of suffering; it is nonetheless true that…

— Émile Durkheim

It is too great comfort which turns a man against himself. Life is most readily renounced at the time and among the…

— Emile Durkheim

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

— Emile Durkheim

Each new generation is reared by its predecessor; the latter must therefore improve in order to improve its successor. The movement is…

— Emile Durkheim

The human person, whose definition serves as the touchstone according to which good must be distinguished from evil, is considered as sacred,…

— Emile Durkheim

“When this ultimate crisis comes... when there is no way out - that is the very moment when we explode from within…

— Émile Durkheim

A social fact is every way of acting, fixed or not, capable of exercising on the individual an external constraint; or again,…

— 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

It is a quite remarkable fact that the great religions of the most civilized peoples are more deeply fraught with sadness than…

— Emile Durkheim

A religion is a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, that is to say, things set apart 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

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

— Emile Durkheim

Sociological method as we practice it rests wholly on the basic principle that social facts must be studied as things, that is,…

— Emile Durkheim

“Anyone who has truly practiced a religion knows very well that it is [the set of regularly repeated actions that make up…

— Émile Durkheim

What history teaches us is that man does not change arbitrarily; he does not transform himself at will on hearing the voices…

— Emile Durkheim

The first and most fundamental rule is: Consider social facts as things.

— Emile Durkheim

Religious representations are collective representations which express collective realities.

— Emile Durkheim

When mores are sufficient, laws are unnecessary; when mores are insufficient, laws are unenforceable.

— Emile Durkheim

“Nihil est in intellectu quod non ante fuerit in sensu,”

— Émile Durkheim

There are two types of men: the great and the small.

— Emile Durkheim

When man discovered the mirror, he began to lose his soul.

— Emile Durkheim

We do not condemn it because it is a crime, but it is a crime because we condemn it.

— 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

It is science, and not religion, which has taught men that things are complex and difficult to understand.

— Emile Durkheim

From the physical point of view, a man is nothing more than a system of cells, or from the mental point of…

— Emile Durkheim

The wise man, knowing how to enjoy achieved results without having constantly to replace them with others, finds in them an attachment…

— Emile Durkheim

Man could not live if he were entirely impervious to sadness. Many sorrows can be endured only by being embraced, and the…

— Emile Durkheim

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

— Emile Durkheim