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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

Instead of this absurd division into sexes they ought to class people as static and dynamic.

The man who sweats under his mask, whose role makes him itch with discomfort, who hates the division in himself, is already beginning to be free.

The man who sweats under his mask, whose role makes him itch with discomfort, who hates the division in himself, is already beginning to be free.

I hope to help make a better world for my daughters; to help break down the divides that still very much exist.

Caste is not just a division of labour, it is a division of labourers.

The whole aspect of cinema and film festivals should be a moment to come together and celebrate art and humanity. It would be a shame if there was such a divide.

The soul of man is divided into three parts, intelligence, reason, and passion. Intelligence and passion are possessed by other animals, but reason by man alone.

The boundaries which divide Life from Death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where the one ends, and where the other begins?