“The man whose whole activity is diverted to inner meditation becomes insensible to all his surroundings. His passions are mere appearances, being sterile. They are dissipated in futile imaginings, producing nothing external to themselves.”

Maniacal suicide. -This is due to hallucinations or delirious conceptions. The patient kills himself to escape from an imaginary danger or disgrace, or to obey a mysterious order from on high, etc.

To pursue a goal which is by definition unattainable is to condemn oneself to a state of perpetual unhappiness.

A religion is a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, that is to say, things set apart and forbidden-beliefs and practices which unite into one single moral community called a Church, all those who adhere to them.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

That men have an interest in knowing the world which surrounds them, and consequently that their reflection should have been applied to it at an early date, is something that everyone will readily admit.

Religious representations are collective representations which express collective realities.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

The artist cannot look to others to validate his efforts or his calling. If you don’t believe me, ask Van Gogh, who produced masterpiece after masterpiece and never found a buyer in his whole life.

Faith in anything, be it positive or negative, produces results. Putting faith in fear generates destructive results, beginning with the disintegration of our ability to relate confidently to the external world.

When writing poetry, it is not that produces a bright idea, but the bright idea that kindles the fire of.

An artist is somebody who produces things that people don’t need to have.

The new spirituality is that it will produce an experience in human encounters in which we become a living demonstration of the basic spiritual teaching ‘We are all one.’

Religious moderation is the product of secular knowledge and scriptural ignorance.

All I’m saying is that there is a price to be paid at the sharp end environmentally and everywhere else for the food that is produced in a particular way.

The purpose of the corporation must be redefined as creating shared value, not just profit per se. This will drive the next wave of innovation and productivity growth in the global economy.