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

Emile Durkheim

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Emile Durkheim
Age: 59 †
Born: 1858
Born: January 1
Died: 1917
Died: January 1
Anthropologist
Historian Of Religion
Philosopher
Professor
Sociologist
Troyes
Aube France
Emile Durkheim
Generations
Successor
Movement
Circular
Order
Successors
Must
Predecessors
Improve
Latter
Generation
Predecessor
Therefore
Reared

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There is no sociology worthy of the name which does not possess a historical character.
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At first sight, one does not see what relations there can be between religion and logic.
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The first and most basic rule is to consider social facts as things.
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When morals are sufficient, law is unnecessary when morals are insufficient, law is unenforceable.
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Maniacal suicide. —This is due to hallucinations or delirious conceptions. The patient kills himself to escape from an imaginary danger or disgrace, or to obey a mysterious order from on high, etc.
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The man whose whole activity is diverted to inner meditation becomes insensible to all his surroundings.
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Science cannot describe individuals, but only types. If human societies cannot be classified, they must remain inaccessible to scientific description.
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The Christian conceives of his abode on Earth in no more delightful colors than the Jainist sectarian. He sees in it only a time of sad trial he also thinks that his true country is not of this world.
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From top to bottom of the ladder, greed is aroused without knowing where to find ultimate foothold. Nothing can calm it, since its goal is far beyond all it can attain. Reality seems valueless by comparison with the dreams of fevered imaginations reality is therefore abandoned.
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It is not human nature which can assign the variable limits necessary to our needs. They are thus unlimited so far as they depend on the individual alone. Irrespective of any external regulatory force, our capacity for feeling is in itself an insatiable and bottomless abyss.
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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.
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Man is a moral being, only because he lives in society. Let all social life disappear and morality will disappear with it.
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When mores are sufficient, laws are unnecessary. When mores are insufficient, laws are unenforceable.
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A mind that questions everything, unless strong enough to bear the weight of its ignorance, risks questioning itself and being engulfed in doubt.
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The roles of art, morality, religion, political faith, science itself are not to repair organic exhaustion nor to provide sound functioning of the organs. All this supraphysical life is built and expanded not because of the demands of the cosmic environment but because of the demands of the social environment.
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If religion has given birth to all that is essential in society, it is because the idea of society is the soul of religion.
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An act cannot be defined by the end sought by the actor, for an identical system of behaviour may be adjustable to too many different ends without altering its nature.
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