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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

Too cheerful a morality is a loose morality; it is appropriate only to decadent peoples and is found only among them.
EMILE DURKHEIM

Finding Lose Moral People
When man discovered the mirror, he began to lose his soul.
EMILE DURKHEIM

Beginning Discover Lose Man Mindset Mirror
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
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
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
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.
EMILE DURKHEIM

Activity Appearance Imagination Man Meditation Production Surround
Man is only a moral being because he lives in society, since morality consists in solidarity with the group, and varies according to that solidarity. Cause all social life to vanish, and moral life would vanish at the same time, having no object to cling to.
EMILE DURKHEIM

Cling Group Life Live Man Object Social Society Solidarity Vanish
To pursue a goal which is by definition unattainable is to condemn oneself to a state of perpetual unhappiness.
EMILE DURKHEIM

Definition Goal Happiness Pursue State
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
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
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
Irrespective of any external, regulatory force, our capacity for feeling is in itself an insatiable and bottomless abyss.
EMILE DURKHEIM

Abyss Capacity Force Regular
A person is not merely a single subject distinguished from all the others. It is especially a being to which is attributed a relative autonomy in relation to the environment with which it is most immediately in contact.
EMILE DURKHEIM

Autonomy Distinguish Person Relative Subject
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
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.
EMILE DURKHEIM

Break Character Continue Fear Separate
When mores are sufficient, laws are unnecessary. When mores are insufficient, laws are unenforceable.
EMILE DURKHEIM

Force Law Necessary

If religion has given birth to all that is essential in society, it is because the idea of society is the soul of religion.

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If religion has given birth to all that is essential in society, it is because the idea of society is the soul of religion.

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