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Sadness does not inhere in things; it does not reach us from the world and through mere contemplation of the world. It is a product of our own thought. We create it out of whole cloth.

Emile Durkheim

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

Assign Capacity Feeling Human Nature Ourselves Variable
A monomaniac is a sick person whose mentality is perfectly healthy in all respects but one; he has a single flaw, clearly localized. At times, for example, he has an unreasonable and absurd desire to drink or steal or use abusive language; but all his other acts and all his other thoughts are strictly correct.
EMILE DURKHEIM

Absurd Drink Health Himself Language Perfection Person Sick Thinking Time
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

Economics Freedom Liberty Myself Profit
It is too great comfort which turns a man against himself. Life is most readily renounced at the time and among the classes where it is least harsh.
EMILE DURKHEIM

Comfortable Greatness Harsh Time
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

Act Expression General Personal Phenomenon Social Suicide Victim
Our whole social environment seems to us to be filled with forces which really exist only in our own minds.
EMILE DURKHEIM

Environment Mindset Ourselves Social
The man whose whole activity is diverted to inner meditation becomes insensible to all his surroundings. His passions are mere appearances, being sterile. They are dissipated in futile imaginings, producing nothing external to themselves.
EMILE DURKHEIM

Activity Appearance Imagination Man Meditation Production Surround
Socialism is not a science, a sociology in miniature: it is a cry of pain.
EMILE DURKHEIM

Cry Miniature Pain Science Social Sociology
When mores are sufficient, laws are unnecessary. When mores are insufficient, laws are unenforceable.
EMILE DURKHEIM

Force Law Necessary
Social life comes from a double source, the likeness of consciences and the division of social labour.
EMILE DURKHEIM

Division Labour Life Social Source
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

Autonomy Distinguish Person Relative Subject
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.
EMILE DURKHEIM

Character Live Man Melancholy Sadness Sorrow
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

Collection Compatible Humor People Psychology Sadness Science Society
Irrespective of any external, regulatory force, our capacity for feeling is in itself an insatiable and bottomless abyss.
EMILE DURKHEIM

Abyss Capacity Force Regular
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.
EMILE DURKHEIM

Action Belief Determination Opinion Phenomenon Religious State
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.
EMILE DURKHEIM

Fact Mindset Oneself Regard Tolerance

Sadness does not inhere in things; it does not reach us from the world and through mere contemplation of the world. It is a product of our own thought. We create it out of whole cloth.

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Sadness does not inhere in things; it does not reach us from the world and through mere contemplation of the world. It is a product of our own thought. We create it out of whole cloth.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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