black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

The first and most basic rule is to consider social facts as things.

Emile Durkheim

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
The man whose whole activity is diverted to inner meditation becomes insensible to all his surroundings.
EMILE DURKHEIM

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

Character History Name Sociology Worth
When mores are sufficient, laws are unnecessary. When mores are insufficient, laws are unenforceable.
EMILE DURKHEIM

Force Law Necessary
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
Socialism is not a science, a sociology in miniature: it is a cry of pain.
EMILE DURKHEIM

Cry Miniature Pain Science Social Sociology
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
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
We do not condemn it because it is a crime, but it is a crime because we condemn it.
EMILE DURKHEIM

Crime Knowledge Philosophy
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
Social life comes from a double source, the likeness of consciences and the division of social labour.
EMILE DURKHEIM

Division Labour Life Social Source
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
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
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
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

The first and most basic rule is to consider social facts as things.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

The first and most basic rule is to consider social facts as things.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Emile Durkheim Quotes