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

Emile Durkheim

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

Comparison Man Obligation Religion
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
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
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
Reality seems valueless by comparison with the dreams of fevered imaginations; reality is therefore abandoned.
EMILE DURKHEIM

Abandonment Comparison Imagination Reality Value
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.
EMILE DURKHEIM

Act Change Define Different End Identity Nature Similar System
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

Birth Essential Religion Society Soul
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
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
It is science, and not religion, which has taught men that things are complex and difficult to understand.
EMILE DURKHEIM

Complex Difficult Man Religion Science Teaching Understand
The term suicide is applied to all cases of death resulting directly or indirectly from a positive or negative act of the victim himself, which he knows will produce this result
EMILE DURKHEIM

Death Known Negative Positive Production Result Suicide Victim
Irrespective of any external, regulatory force, our capacity for feeling is in itself an insatiable and bottomless abyss.
EMILE DURKHEIM

Abyss Capacity Force Regular
When man discovered the mirror, he began to lose his soul.
EMILE DURKHEIM

Beginning Discover Lose Man Mindset Mirror
Religious representations are collective representations which express collective realities.
EMILE DURKHEIM

Expression Reality Religious Representation

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

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

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