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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

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
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

Belief Collection Creative Emotion Sentiment System
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
At first sight, one does not see what relations there can be between religion and logic.
EMILE DURKHEIM

Logic Relation Religion
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
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 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
Social life comes from a double source, the likeness of consciences and the division of social labour.
EMILE DURKHEIM

Division Labour Life Social Source
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
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
The first and most basic rule is to consider social facts as things.
EMILE DURKHEIM

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

Character History Name Sociology Worth
Even one well-made observation will be enough in many cases, just as one well-constructed experiment often suffices for the establishment of a law.
EMILE DURKHEIM

Enough Establishment Experiment Law Observation Willing

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

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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.

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Popular Authors

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