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Emile Durkheim

Emile Durkheim Quotes

Sociologist

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Famous Emile Durkheim Quotes

“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
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“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.”

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Author:Emile Durkheim
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“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
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“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.”

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Author:Emile Durkheim
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