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

Social life comes from a double source, the likeness of consciences and the division of social labour.

Our excessive tolerance with regard to suicide is due to the fact that, since the state of mind from which it springs is a general one, we cannot condemn it without condemning ourselves; we are too saturated with it not partly to excuse it.

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.

There is no sociology worthy of the name which does not possess a historical character.

Man is a moral being, only because he lives in society. Let all social life disappear and morality will disappear with it.

The man whose whole activity is diverted to inner meditation becomes insensible to all his surroundings.

At first sight, one does not see what relations there can be between religion and logic.

When mores are sufficient, laws are unnecessary. When mores are insufficient, laws are unenforceable.

The wise man, knowing how to enjoy achieved results without having constantly to replace them with others, finds in them an attachment to life in the hour of difficulty.

It is only by historical analysis that we can discover what makes up man, since it is only in the course of history that he is formed.

Science cannot describe individuals, but only types. If human societies cannot be classified, they must remain inaccessible to scientific description.

Religious phenomena are naturally arranged in two fundamental categories: beliefs and rites. The first are states of opinion, and consist in representations; the second are determined modes of action.

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.

Men have been obliged to make for themselves a notion of what religion is, long before the science of religions started its methodical comparisons.

Socialism is not a science, a sociology in miniature: it is a cry of pain.

One does not advance when one walks toward no goal, or – which is the same thing – when his goal is infinity.

Whatever is unknown is magnified.

Men of culture are the true apostles of equality

It is – last stage of all When we are frozen up within, and quite The phantom of ourselves To hear the world applaud the hollow ghost Which blamed the living man

My mind’s sunk so low, Claudia, because of you, wrecked itself on your account so bad already, that I couldn’t like you if you were the best of women, -or stop loving you, no matter what you do.

Style … is a peculiar recasting and heightening, under a certain condition of spiritual excitement, of what a man has to say, in such a manner as to add dignity and distinction to it.

A very important thing is not to make up your mind that you are any one thing.

Kindness, so far as we can return it, is agreeable.

In college I didn’t dress up every day, for class or stuff like that, but when it came time to do certain things I’d dress up for sure.