Emile Durkheim Quotes

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  • When mores are sufficient, laws are unnecessary. When mores are insufficient, laws are unenforceable.

    Attributed to Emile Durkheim in "Readings in Renewing American Civilization" edited by Jeffrey A. Eisenach and Albert Stephen Hanser (p. 54), 1993.
  • One does not advance when one walks toward no goal, or - which is the same thing - when his goal is infinity.

    John A. Spaulding, George Simpson, Emile Durkheim (2010). “Suicide”, p.248, Simon and Schuster
  • Social life comes from a double source, the likeness of consciences and the division of social labour.

    Emile Durkheim (1973). “Emile Durkheim on Morality and Society”, p.110, University of Chicago Press
  • The Christian conceives of his abode on Earth in no more delightful colors than the Jainist sectarian. He sees in it only a time of sad trial; he also thinks that his true country is not of this world.

    John A. Spaulding, George Simpson, Emile Durkheim (2010). “Suicide”, p.226, Simon and Schuster
  • It is a quite remarkable fact that the great religions of the most civilized peoples are more deeply fraught with sadness than the simpler beliefs of earlier societies. This certainly does not mean that the current of pessimism is eventually to submerge the other, but it proves that it does not lose ground and that it does not seem destined to disappear.

    Emile Durkheim (2005). “Suicide: A Study in Sociology”, p.333, Routledge
  • 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

    John A. Spaulding, George Simpson, Emile Durkheim (2010). “Suicide”, p.44, Simon and Schuster
  • Sociological method as we practice it rests wholly on the basic principle that social facts must be studied as things, that is, as realities external to the individual. There is no principle for which we have received more criticism; but none is more fundamental. Indubitably for sociology to be possible, it must above all have an object all its own. It must take cognizance of a reality which is not in the domain of other sciences... there can be no sociology unless societies exist, and that societies cannot exist if there are only individuals.

  • Socialism is not a science, a sociology in miniature: it is a cry of pain.

  • It is science, and not religion, which has taught men that things are complex and difficult to understand.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • There is a collective as well as an individual humor inclining peoples to sadness or cheerfulness, making them see things in bright or somber lights. In fact, only society can pass a collective opinion on the value of human life; for this the individual is incompetent.

    John A. Spaulding, George Simpson, Emile Durkheim (2010). “Suicide”, p.213, Simon and Schuster
  • While the State becomes inflated and hypertrophied in order to obtain a firm enough grip upon individuals, but without succeeding, the latter, without mutual relationships, tumble over one another like so many liquid molecules, encountering no central energy to retain, fix and organize them.

  • Religious representations are collective representations which express collective realities.

    Emile Durkheim (2000). “The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life”, p.12, Library of Alexandria
  • 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.

  • 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.

    Emile Durkheim (2005). “Suicide: A Study in Sociology”, p.357, Routledge
  • 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 (2005). “Suicide: A Study in Sociology”, p.245, Routledge
  • Irrespective of any external, regulatory force, our capacity for feeling is in itself an insatiable and bottomless abyss.

    Emile Durkheim (2005). “Suicide: A Study in Sociology”, p.208, Routledge
  • 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.

  • One cannot long remain so absorbed in contemplation of emptiness without being increasingly attracted to it. In vain one bestows on it the name of infinity; this does not change its nature. When one feels such pleasure in non-existence, one's inclination can be completely satisfied only by completely ceasing to exist.

    Emile Durkheim (2005). “Suicide: A Study in Sociology”, p.243, Routledge
  • 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.

    People  
    John A. Spaulding, George Simpson, Emile Durkheim (2010). “Suicide”, p.63, Simon and Schuster
  • When morals are sufficient, law is unnecessary; when morals are insufficient, law is 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.

    Emile Durkheim (2005). “Suicide: A Study in Sociology”, p.217, Routledge
  • 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.

    John A. Spaulding, George Simpson, Emile Durkheim (2010). “Suicide”, p.59, Simon and Schuster
  • There is no society known where a more or less developed criminality is not found under different forms. No people exists whose morality is not daily infringed upon. We must therefore call crime necessary and declare that it cannot be non-existent, that the fundamental conditions of social organization, as they are understood, logically imply it.

    John A. Spaulding, George Simpson, Emile Durkheim (2010). “Suicide”, p.362, Simon and Schuster
  • 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.

    John A. Spaulding, George Simpson, Emile Durkheim (2010). “Suicide”, p.279, Simon and Schuster
  • 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.

    John A. Spaulding, George Simpson, Emile Durkheim (2010). “Suicide”, p.63, Simon and Schuster
  • What history teaches us is that man does not change arbitrarily; he does not transform himself at will on hearing the voices of inspired prophets. The reason is that all change, in colliding with the inherited institutions of the past, is inevitably hard and laborious; consequently it only takes place in response to the demands of necessity. For change to be brought about it is not enough that it should be seen as desirable; it must be the product of changes within the whole network of diverse casual relationships which then determine the situation of man.

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

    "The Rules of Sociological Method: And Selected Texts on Sociology and Its Method".
  • Too cheerful a morality is a loose morality; it is appropriate only to decadent peoples and is found only among them.

    Emile Durkheim (2005). “Suicide: A Study in Sociology”, p.333, Routledge
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  • We hope you have found the saying you were looking for in our collection! At the moment, we have collected 69 quotes from the Sociologist Emile Durkheim, starting from April 15, 1858! We periodically replenish our collection so that visitors of our website can always find inspirational quotes by authors from all over the world! Come back to us again!

    Emile Durkheim

    • Born: April 15, 1858
    • Died: November 15, 1917
    • Occupation: Sociologist