Maniacal suicide. βThis 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 DurkheimRead
The man whose whole activity is diverted to inner meditation becomes insensible to all his surroundings.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote emphasizes the isolating nature of deep meditation and introspection.
Emile Durkheim's quote reflects on the intense focus and absorption that can occur during inner meditation, suggesting that such a deep engagement with one's thoughts can lead to a disconnection from the external world. It implies that while meditation can be enriching and enlightening, it can also create a barrier to one's awareness of the immediate environment and social interactions.
Themes
MeditationIntrospectionAwarenessIsolationMindfulness
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a discussion about the balance between meditation and social engagement.
More from Emile Durkheim
All quotes βMan cannot become attached to higher aims and submit to a rule if he sees nothing above him to which he belongs. To free him from all social pressure is to abandon him to himself and demoralize him.
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If religion has given birth to all that is essential in society, it is because the idea of society is the soul of religion.
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A person is not merely a single subject distinguished from all the others. It is especially a being to which is attributed a relative autonomy in relation to the environment with which it is most immediately in contact.
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The roles of art, morality, religion, political faith, science itself are not to repair organic exhaustion nor to provide sound functioning of the organs. All this supraphysical life is built and expanded not because of the demands of the cosmic environment but because of the demands of the social environment.
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A society whose members are united by the fact that they think in the same way in regard to the sacred world and its relations with the profane world, and by the fact that they translate these common ideas into common practices, is what is called a Church. In all history, we do not find a single religion without a Church.
Emile DurkheimRead
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