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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.

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
Society
Religion
Idea
Given
Soul
Ideas
Essential
Essentials
Birth

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To pursue a goal which is by definition unattainable is to condemn oneself to a state of perpetual unhappiness.
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Man cannot become attached to higher aims and submit to a rule if he sees nothing above him to which he belongs. To free him from all social pressure is to abandon him to himself and demoralize him.
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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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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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I can be free only to the extent that others are forbidden to profit from their physical, economic, or other superiority to the detriment of my liberty.
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At first sight, one does not see what relations there can be between religion and logic.
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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.
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Too cheerful a morality is a loose morality it is appropriate only to decadent peoples and is found only among them.
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When morals are sufficient, law is unnecessary when morals are insufficient, law is unenforceable.
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When mores are sufficient, laws are unnecessary. When mores are insufficient, laws are unenforceable.
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There is a collective as well as an individual humor inclining peoples to sadness or cheerfulness, making them see things in bright or somber lights. In fact, only society can pass a collective opinion on the value of human life for this the individual is incompetent.
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One does not advance when one walks toward no goal, or - which is the same thing - when his goal is infinity.
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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.
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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.
Emile Durkheim
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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.
Emile Durkheim
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The totality of beliefs and sentiments common to the average members of a society forms a determinate system with a life of its own. It can be termed the collective or creative consciousness.
Emile Durkheim
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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.
Emile Durkheim
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We do not condemn it because it is a crime, but it is a crime because we condemn it.
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Irrespective of any external, regulatory force, our capacity for feeling is in itself an insatiable and bottomless abyss.
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The man whose whole activity is diverted to inner meditation becomes insensible to all his surroundings.
Emile Durkheim