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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

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

Character History Name Sociology Worth
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.
EMILE DURKHEIM

Argument Evidence Faith Reason Shock
When mores are sufficient, laws are unnecessary. When mores are insufficient, laws are unenforceable.
EMILE DURKHEIM

Force Law Necessary
The first and most basic rule is to consider social facts as things.
EMILE DURKHEIM

Basic Fact Rule Social
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
Man is a moral being, only because he lives in society. Let all social life disappear and morality will disappear with it.
EMILE DURKHEIM

Disappear Live Man Moral Philosophy Society
A mind that questions everything, unless strong enough to bear the weight of its ignorance, risks questioning itself and being engulfed in doubt.
EMILE DURKHEIM

Curiosity Mindset Question Risk
By definition, sacred beings are separated beings. That which characterizes them is that there is a break of continuity between them and the profane beings.
EMILE DURKHEIM

Break Character Continue Fear Separate
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

Attract Connection Depression Melancholy Patience Pleasure Realize Suicide
One does not advance when one walks toward no goal, or – which is the same thing – when his goal is infinity.
EMILE DURKHEIM

Goal Infinity Oneself Walk
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

Circular Generation Improvement Movement Order
Science cannot describe individuals, but only types. If human societies cannot be classified, they must remain inaccessible to scientific description.
EMILE DURKHEIM

Describe Description Human Science Scientific Society Type
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.
EMILE DURKHEIM

Achievement Difficult Enjoyment Known Man Wisdom
Religious representations are collective representations which express collective realities.
EMILE DURKHEIM

Expression Reality Religious Representation
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.
EMILE DURKHEIM

Attachment High Himself Man Pressure
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

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

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

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