Quote

Although our moral conscience is a part of our consciousness, we do not feel ourselves on an equality with it. In this voice which makes itself heard only to give us orders and establish prohibitions, we cannot recognize our own voices the very tone in which it speaks to us warns us that it expresses something within us that is not of ourselves.

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
Cannot
Consciousness
Establish
Part
Heard
Speaks
Give
Within
Voices
Feel
Moral
Tone
Prohibitions
Feels
Voice
Equality
Warns
Giving
Speak
Recognize
Expresses
Something
Makes
Although
Prohibition
Order
Conscience
Orders

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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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It is science, and not religion, which has taught men that things are complex and difficult to understand.
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There is no society known where a more or less developed criminality is not found under different forms. No people exists whose morality is not daily infringed upon. We must therefore call crime necessary and declare that it cannot be non-existent, that the fundamental conditions of social organization, as they are understood, logically imply it.
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There is no sociology worthy of the name which does not possess a historical character.
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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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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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To pursue a goal which is by definition unattainable is to condemn oneself to a state of perpetual unhappiness.
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Melancholy suicide. - This is connected with a general state of extreme depression and exaggerated sadness, causing the patient no longer to realize sanely the bonds which connect him with people and things about him. Pleasures no longer attract.
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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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The man whose whole activity is diverted to inner meditation becomes insensible to all his surroundings.
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When mores are sufficient, laws are unnecessary. When mores are insufficient, laws are unenforceable.
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Social life comes from a double source, the likeness of consciences and the division of social labour.
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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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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.
Emile Durkheim
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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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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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One cannot long remain so absorbed in contemplation of emptiness without being increasingly attracted to it. In vain one bestows on it the name of infinity this does not change its nature. When one feels such pleasure in non-existence, one's inclination can be completely satisfied only by completely ceasing to exist.
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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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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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When morals are sufficient, law is unnecessary when morals are insufficient, law is unenforceable.
Emile Durkheim