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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
Environment
Force
Social
Seems
Whole
Forces
Mind
Minds
Really
Filled
Exist

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The first and most basic rule is to consider social facts as things.
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Faith is not uprooted by dialectic proof it must already be deeply shaken by other causes to be unable to withstand the shock of argument.
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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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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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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.
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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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There is no sociology worthy of the name which does not possess a historical character.
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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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At first sight, one does not see what relations there can be between religion and logic.
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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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We do not condemn it because it is a crime, but it is a crime because we condemn it.
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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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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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To pursue a goal which is by definition unattainable is to condemn oneself to a state of perpetual unhappiness.
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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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Social life comes from a double source, the likeness of consciences and the division of social labour.
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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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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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