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Quote by Emile Durkheim

“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.”

Quote by Emile Durkheim

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Emile Durkheim
Emile Durkheim

Émile Durkheim, a French sociologist born on April 15, 1858, and died on November 15, 1917, is considered the father of sociology. His work profoundly influenced the understanding of social structure, social functions, and collective consciousness. more

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“Pain or not, I would most likely walk around in a suicidal reverie the rest of my life, never actually doing anything about it. Was there a psychological term for that? Was there a disease that involved an intense desire to die, but no will to go through with it? Couldn't talk and thoughts of suicide be considered a whole malady of their own, a special subcategory of depression in which the loss of a will to live has not quite been displaced by a determination to die?”

WholePainDesireDiesTermLossWalksSpecialInvolvedDiseaseDeterminationSuicideIntensePsychologicalSuicidalReverieMaladyWill To Live
Book:Prozac Nation: Young and Depressed in America
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“I guess I realize that I don't want to die. I don't want to live either, but-there really isn't anything in-between. Depression is about as close as you get to somewhere between dead and alive, and it's the worst. But since the tendency toward inertia means that it's easier for me to stay alive than die, I guess that's how it's going to be, so I guess I should try to be happy.”

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Book:Prozac Nation: Young and Depressed in America
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“The knives in my apartment are only sharp enough to open envelopes with. Cutting a slice of coarse bread is on the borderline of their ability. I don't need anything sharper. Otherwise, on bad days, it might easily occur to me that I could always go stand in the bathroom in front of the mirror and slit my throat. On such occasions it's nice to have the added security of needing to go downstairs and borrow a decent knife from a neighbor.”

NeedsEnoughMightAbilityNiceCuttingSecurityFrontsMirrorsNeighborBreadOccasionsDecentThroatKnivesApartmentSuicidalBathroomBad DayEnvelopesCoarseSlitsBorderline
Author:Peter Høeg
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“I imagined a psychic pain growing inside him (myself) that demanded some physical outlet. Suicide must have been his attempt to give Pain a body, a representation, to put it outside himself. A need to convert inner torment into some outward tangible wound that all could see. It was almost as though suicide were a last-ditch effort at exorcism, in which the person sacrificed his life in order that the devil inside might die.”

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Author:Phillip Lopate
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“God, if ever I have come close to wanting to commit suicide, it is now, with the groggy sleepless blood dragging through my veins, and the air thick and gray with rain ... I fell into bed again this morning, begging for sleep, withdrawing into the dark, warm, fetid escape from action, from responsibility. No good.”

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Book:The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath
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