One does not advance when one walks toward no goal, or - which is the same thing - when his goal is infinity. Emile Durkheim More Quotes by Emile Durkheim More Quotes From Emile Durkheim The first and most basic rule is to consider social facts as things. Emile Durkheim fundamentalsfactsfirsts Although our moral conscience is a part of our consciousness, we do not feel ourselves on an equality with it. In this voice which makes itself heard only to give us orders and establish prohibitions, we cannot recognize our own voices; the very tone in which it speaks to us warns us that it expresses something within us that is not of ourselves. Emile Durkheim voicegivingorder From top to bottom of the ladder, greed is aroused without knowing where to find ultimate foothold. Nothing can calm it, since its goal is far beyond all it can attain. Reality seems valueless by comparison with the dreams of fevered imaginations; reality is therefore abandoned. Emile Durkheim walldreamreality 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 luxuryclassmen At this point, an urgent question arises: [...] Is it our duty to seek to become a thorough and complete human being, one quite sufficient unto himself; or, on the contrary, to be only a part of a whole, the organ of an organism? Briefly, is the division of labor, at the same time that it is a law of nature, also a moral rule of human conduct; and, if it has this latter character, why and in what degree? Emile Durkheim division-of-laborlawcharacter Socialism is not a science, a sociology in miniature: it is a cry of pain. Emile Durkheim socialismcrypain Social life comes from a double source, the likeness of consciences and the division of social labour. Emile Durkheim divisionsourcesocial 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 enoughlawscience 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. Emile Durkheim christiancountrythinking 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. Emile Durkheim behaviouractorsdifferent 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 knowingwisemen At first sight, one does not see what relations there can be between religion and logic. Emile Durkheim sightdoefirsts For a long time it has been known that the first systems of representations with which men have pictured to themselves the world and themselves were of religious origin. There is no religion that is not a cosmology at the same time that it is a speculation upon divine things. If philosophy and the sciences were born of religion, it is because religion began by taking the place of the sciences and philosophy. Emile Durkheim religiousphilosophyscience 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. Emile Durkheim sadsorrowworld 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 healthysickdesire There is no sociology worthy of the name which does not possess a historical character. Emile Durkheim historicalnamescharacter Irrespective of any external, regulatory force, our capacity for feeling is in itself an insatiable and bottomless abyss. Emile Durkheim forcecapacityfeelings 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. Emile Durkheim hallucinationssuicideorder 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 notionmenlong 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 suicidalsuicidespring
