Collected Meditations
Showing 10 quotesThe Christian conceives of his abode on Earth in no more delightful colors than the Jainist sectarian. He sees in it only a time of sad trial; he also thinks that his true country is not of this world.— Emile Durkheim
topics:
Sad
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 Durkheim
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Religion
Men have been obliged to make for themselves a notion of what religion is, long before the science of religions started its methodical comparisons.— Emile Durkheim
It is science, and not religion, which has taught men that things are complex and difficult to understand.— Emile Durkheim
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Religion
If religion has given birth to all that is essential in society, it is because the idea of society is the soul of religion.— 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
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Knowledge
Man seeks to learn, and man kills himself because of the loss of cohesion in his religious society; he does not kill himself because of his learning. It is certainly not the learning he acquires that disorganizes religion; but the desire for knowledge wakens because religion becomes disorganized.— Emile Durkheim
There is a collective as well as an individual humor inclining peoples to sadness or cheerfulness, making them see things in bright or somber lights. In fact, only society can pass a collective opinion on the value of human life; for this the individual is incompetent.— Emile Durkheim