Emile Durkheim Professions : Sociologist Born : April 15, 1858 Died : November 15, 1917 Browse All Authors Top 74 quotes by Emile Durkheim Man is a moral being, only because he lives in society. Let all social life disappear and morality will disappear with it. Emile Durkheim morality social men Society is not a mere sum of individuals. Rather, the system formed by their association represents a specific reality which has its own characteristics... The group thinks, feels, and acts quite differently from the way in which its members would were they isolated. If, then, we begin with the individual, we shall be able to understand nothing of what takes place in the group. Emile Durkheim groups reality thinking We do not condemn it because it is a crime, but it is a crime because we condemn it. Emile Durkheim crime Each new generation is reared by its predecessor; the latter must therefore improve in order to improve its successor. The movement is circular. Emile Durkheim generations movement order 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 risk strong ignorance When mores are sufficient, laws are unnecessary. When mores are insufficient, laws are unenforceable. Emile Durkheim unnecessary sufficient law Our whole social environment seems to us to be filled with forces which really exist only in our own minds. Emile Durkheim environment social mind When man discovered the mirror, he began to lose his soul. Emile Durkheim mirrors soul men 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. Emile Durkheim different organization people When morals are sufficient, law is unnecessary; when morals are insufficient, law is unenforceable. Emile Durkheim unnecessary moral law 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. Emile Durkheim voice men past 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. Emile Durkheim community practice religion 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 essentials soul ideas 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. Emile Durkheim criticism practice reality 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 groups causes men This solidarity can grow only in inverse ratio to personality... Solidarity which comes from likenesses is at its maximum when the collective conscience completely envelops our whole conscience and coincides in all points with it... when this solidarity exercises its force, our personality vanishes, as our definition permits us to say, for we are no longer ourselves, but the collective life. Emile Durkheim definitions personality exercise 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 suicidal suicide giving 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 creative belief average Reality seems valueless by comparison with the dreams of fevered imaginations; reality is therefore abandoned. Emile Durkheim imagination dream reality To pursue a goal which is by definition unattainable is to condemn oneself to a state of perpetual unhappiness. 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