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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.

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
Single
Relative
Environment
Immediately
Others
Contact
Persons
Relation
Person
Subject
Merely
Attributed
Subjects
Autonomy
Especially
Distinguished

More quotes by Emile Durkheim

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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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Socialism is not a science, a sociology in miniature: it is a cry of pain.
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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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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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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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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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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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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.
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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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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.
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When mores are sufficient, laws are unnecessary. When mores are insufficient, laws are unenforceable.
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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.
Emile Durkheim
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Man is only a moral being because he lives in society, since morality consists in solidarity with the group, and varies according to that solidarity. Cause all social life to vanish, and moral life would vanish at the same time, having no object to cling to.
Emile Durkheim
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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.
Emile Durkheim
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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.
Emile Durkheim
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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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While the State becomes inflated and hypertrophied in order to obtain a firm enough grip upon individuals, but without succeeding, the latter, without mutual relationships, tumble over one another like so many liquid molecules, encountering no central energy to retain, fix and organize them.
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When morals are sufficient, law is unnecessary when morals are insufficient, law is unenforceable.
Emile Durkheim
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A social fact is every way of acting, fixed or not, capable of exercising on the individual an external constraint or again, every way of acting which is general throughout a given society, while at the same time existing in its own right independent of its individual manifestations.
Emile Durkheim
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By definition, sacred beings are separated beings. That which characterizes them is that there is a break of continuity between them and the profane beings.
Emile Durkheim