Émile Durkheim

“The first and most fundamental rule is to consider social facts as things.”

“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 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 the collective or common consciousness.”

“It is society which, fashioning us in its image, fills us with religious, political and moral beliefs that control our actions.”

“Man's characteristic privilege is that the bond he accepts is not physical but moral; that is, social.”

“Man is a man only because he is civilized.”

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

“A religion is a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things... which unite into one single moral community called a Church, all those who adhere to them.”

“Crime is normal... it is completely impossible for any society free of it to exist.”

“No living being can be happy or even exist unless his needs are sufficiently proportioned to his means.”

“If I do not submit to the conventions of society... the ridicule I provoke, the social isolation in which I am kept, produce... the same effects as punishment.”

“To love society is to love the social ideal. It is to love everything that makes up the collective soul.”

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