Émile Durkheim Quotes

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

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

“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 characteristics... The group thinks, feels, and acts quite differently from the way in which its members would were they isolated. If, then, we begin with the individual, we shall be able to understand nothing of what takes place in the group.”

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

“When mores are sufficient, laws are unnecessary. When mores are insufficient, laws are unenforceable.”

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

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