A mind that questions everything, unless strong enough to bear the weight of its ignorance, risks questioning itself and being engulfed in doubt..

Social life comes from a double source, the likeness of consciences and the division of social labour..

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 practic….

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 in….

When man discovered the mirror, he began to lose his soul..

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….

Our whole social environment seems to us to be filled with forces which really exist only in our own minds..

Society is not a mere sum of individuals. Rather, the system formed by their association represents a specific reality which has its own characterist….

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. Th….

If religion has given birth to all that is essential in society, it is because the idea of society is the soul of religion..

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….

When morals are sufficient, law is unnecessary; when morals are insufficient, law is unenforceable..

Reality seems valueless by comparison with the dreams of fevered imaginations; reality is therefore abandoned..

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.….

Each new generation is reared by its predecessor; the latter must therefore improve in order to improve its successor. The movement is circular..

The first and most basic rule is to consider social facts as things..

Science cannot describe individuals, but only types. If human societies cannot be classified, they must remain inaccessible to scientific description..

Melancholy suicide. - This is connected with a general state of extreme depression and exaggerated sadness, causing the patient no longer to realize ….

Man is a moral being, only because he lives in society. Let all social life disappear and morality will disappear with it..

We do not condemn it because it is a crime, but it is a crime because we condemn it..

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….