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Our whole social environment seems to us to be filled with forces which really exist only in our own minds.

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
Force
Social
Seems
Whole
Forces
Mind
Minds
Really
Filled
Exist
Environment

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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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There is no sociology worthy of the name which does not possess a historical character.
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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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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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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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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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At first sight, one does not see what relations there can be between religion and logic.
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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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We do not condemn it because it is a crime, but it is a crime because we condemn it.
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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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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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Social life comes from a double source, the likeness of consciences and the division of social labour.
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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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When morals are sufficient, law is unnecessary when morals are insufficient, law is unenforceable.
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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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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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Science cannot describe individuals, but only types. If human societies cannot be classified, they must remain inaccessible to scientific description.
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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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When mores are sufficient, laws are unnecessary. When mores are insufficient, laws are unenforceable.
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