Emile Durkheim

Religion is a system of symbols that express the collective sentiments of a group.

The object of science is to discover the laws of phenomena.

The individual is an abstraction; only society is real.

The stronger the collective conscience, the less room there is for individual variation.

The cult of the individual is a form of idolatry.

The primary cause of suicide is an excess or deficit of social integration.

There are no moral facts, only social facts.

The sacred is the very foundation of society.

Every society is a moral society.

The more complex a society, the more fragile its moral order.

Man 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.

It is society that has made us what we are; it is society that, through its institutions, educates us, shapes our thoughts, and determines our actions.

The first rule of sociology is to treat social facts as things.

Crime is normal because a society exempt from it is utterly impossible.

Too cheerful a morality is a loose morality; it is appropriate only to decadent peoples and is found only among them.

When mores are sufficient, laws are unnecessary; when mores are insufficient, laws are unenforceable.

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

Socialism is not a science, a sociology in miniature: it is a cry of pain.

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

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