Emile Durkheim Quotes

South Sudan, Sociologist
April 15, 1858 – November, 15, 1917.

David Émile Durkheim (15 April 1858 – 15 November 1917) was a French sociologist. He formally established the academic discipline and—with W. E. B. Du Bois, Karl Marx and Max Weber—is commonly cited as the principal architect of modern social science.

To pursue a goal which is by definition unattainable is to condemn oneself to a state of perpetual unhappiness.

Emile Durkheim
The fundamental proposition of the apriorist theory is that knowledge is made up of two sorts of elements, which cannot be reduced into one another, and which are like two distinct layers superimposed one upon the other.

Emile Durkheim
- Up
- Knowledge

From the physical point of view, a man is nothing more than a system of cells, or from the mental point of view, than a system of representations; in either case, he differs only in degree from animals.

Emile Durkheim
Faith is not uprooted by dialectic proof; it must already be deeply shaken by other causes to be unable to withstand the shock of argument.

Emile Durkheim
- Faith
The individual can maintain himself in a society definitely organized only through possessing an equally definite mental and moral constitution. This is what the neuropath lacks. His state of disturbance causes him to be constantly taken by surprise by circumstances.

Emile Durkheim
- Society
- Taken
- Moral
Our whole social environment seems to us to be filled with forces which really exist only in our own minds.

Emile Durkheim
- Environment
Whoever makes an attempt on a man's life, on a man's liberty, on a man's honour inspires us with a feeling of horror in every way analogous to that which the believer experiences when he sees his idol profaned.

Emile Durkheim
- Life
- Feeling