“When morals are sufficient, laws are unnecessary; when morals are insufficient, laws are unenforceable.”
― Emile Durkheim (1858-1917)
“We do not condemn it because it is a crime, but it is a crime because we condemn it.”
― Emile Durkheim (1858-1917)
“One does not advance when one walks toward no goal, or - which is the same thing - when his goal is infinity.”
― Emile Durkheim (1858-1917)
“The most barbarous and the most fantastic rites and the strangest myths translate some human need, some aspect of life, either individual or social.”
― Emile Durkheim (1858-1917)
“Things perceived as real become real in their consequences.”
― Emile Durkheim (1858-1917)
“Liberty is the daughter of authority properly understood. For to be free is not to do what one pleases; it is to be the master of oneself, it is to know how to act within reason and to do one's duty.”
― Emile Durkheim (1858-1917)
“Religion is in a word the system of symbols by means of which society becomes conscious of itself.”
― Emile Durkheim (1858-1917)
"Man is a moral being, only because he lives in society. Let all social life disappear and morality will disappear with it."
― Emile Durkheim (1858-1917)
"Our whole social environment seems to us to be filled with forces which really exist only in our own minds."
― Emile Durkheim (1858-1917)
"When man discovered the mirror, he began to lose his soul."
― Emile Durkheim (1858-1917)
"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 (1858-1917)
"A religion is a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, that is to say, things set apart and forbidden-beliefs and practices which unite into one single moral community called a Church, all those who adhere to them."
― Emile Durkheim (1858-1917)
"Social life comes from a double source, the likeness of consciences and the division of social labour."
― Emile Durkheim (1858-1917)
"Science cannot describe individuals, but only types. If human societies cannot be classified, they must remain inaccessible to scientific description."
― Emile Durkheim (1858-1917)
"It is too great comfort which turns a man against himself. Life is most readily renounced at the time and among the classes where it is least harsh."
― Emile Durkheim (1858-1917)