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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.

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
Free
Detriment
Others
Forbidden
Superiority
Extent
Profit
Physical
Liberty
Economic

More quotes by 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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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.
Emile Durkheim
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Each victim of suicide gives his act a personal stamp which expresses his temperament, the special conditions in which he is involved, and which, consequently, cannot be explained by the social and general causes of the phenomenon.
Emile Durkheim
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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.
Emile Durkheim
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To pursue a goal which is by definition unattainable is to condemn oneself to a state of perpetual unhappiness.
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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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.
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.
Emile Durkheim
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Socialism is not a science, a sociology in miniature: it is a cry of pain.
Emile Durkheim
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When morals are sufficient, law is unnecessary when morals are insufficient, law is unenforceable.
Emile Durkheim
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There is no sociology worthy of the name which does not possess a historical character.
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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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.
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.
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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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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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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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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Too cheerful a morality is a loose morality it is appropriate only to decadent peoples and is found only among them.
Emile Durkheim
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Science cannot describe individuals, but only types. If human societies cannot be classified, they must remain inaccessible to scientific description.
Emile Durkheim