Quotessence
Home / Authors / Emile Durkheim
Emile Durkheim

Emile Durkheim Quotes

Sociologist

Filter quotes by topic

AllMenSocialIfsDoeFactsIndividualMoralWholeHuman NatureFirsts

Famous Emile Durkheim Quotes

“Religious phenomena are naturally arranged in two fundamental categories: beliefs and rites. The first are states of opinion, and consist in representations; the second are determined modes of action.”

FirstsTwoStatesActionBeliefReligiousOpinionFundamentalsDeterminedCategoriesRepresentationRite
Book:Durkheim on Religion: A Selection of Readings with Bibliographies and Introductory Remarks
Create image

“Man seeks to learn, and man kills himself because of the loss of cohesion in his religious society; he does not kill himself because of his learning. It is certainly not the learning he acquires that disorganizes religion; but the desire for knowledge wakens because religion becomes disorganized.”

MenDoeDesireReligiousLossAcquireCohesionDisorganizedDesire For Knowledge
Book:Durkheim on Religion: A Selection of Readings with Bibliographies and Introductory Remarks
Create image

“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.”

IfsFactsRealityIndividualSocialPrinciplesPracticeObjectsCriticismMethodFundamentalsSociologyDomainBasic PrinciplesSociological
Author:Emile Durkheim
Create image

“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.”

WholeForceGrowsPersonalityExerciseConscienceDefinitionsCollectivesPermitSolidarityMaximumRatiosInverse
Author:Emile Durkheim
Create image

“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?”

IfsHumansWholeCharacterLawHuman BeingsMoralDutyDegreesLaborContraryAriseSufficientLatterDivisionOrgansOrganismsUrgentLaws Of NatureThoroughDivision Of LaborParts Of A Whole
Author:Emile Durkheim
Create image

“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.”

MenShouldDoeHardReasonEnoughWholePastVoiceSituationTeachProductsDemandInstitutionsResponseInspiredDetermineHearingProphetDiverseDesirableCasualCasual Relationships
Author:Emile Durkheim
Create image

“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.”

ReligionBeliefCommunityChurchMoralPracticeSacredRelativeForbiddenUnifiedSacred Things
Book:The Rules of Sociological Method: And Selected Texts on Sociology and its Method
Create image

“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.”

IfsThinkingWayFeelsRealityAbleIndividualGroupsHuman NatureMembersMereCharacteristicsAssociationIsolatedIf Then
Author:Emile Durkheim
Create image

“Man's characteristic privilege is that the bond he accepts is not physical but moral; that is, social. He is governed not by a material environment brutally imposed on him, but by a conscience superior to his own, the superiority of which he feels. Because the greater, better part of his existence transcends the body, he escapes the body's yoke, but is subject to that of society.”

MenFeelsBodySocialExistenceAcceptingMoralEnvironmentGreaterSocietySubjectsMaterialsConsciencePrivilegeSuperiorsCharacteristicsSuperiorityYokeGreat Society
Book:Suicide: A Study in Sociology
Create image

“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.”

IfsMenWorldFirstsLongHas BeensPhilosophyScienceReligionBornReligiousKnownDivineLong TimeAccountsRepresentationSpeculationCosmologyScience And Philosophy
Author:Emile Durkheim
Create image

“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.”

PeopleDifferentFormFoundSocialKnownConditionsCrimeMoralityUnderstoodOrganizationFundamentalsCriminalitySocial Organization
Book:Suicide
Create image

“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.”

DreamRealitySeemsGoalImaginationKnowingWallUltimateBottomGreedCalmComparisonAbandonedLaddersValuelessImagination Reality
Book:Suicide: A Study in Sociology
Create image

“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.”

FeelsLongDoeNamesPleasureExistenceSatisfiedVainContemplationEmptinessInfinityInclinationNon Existence
Book:Suicide: A Study in Sociology
Create image