Sadness does not inhere in things; it does not reach us from the world and through mere contemplation of the world. It is a product of our own thought. We create it out of whole cloth.
Emile DurkheimOne does not advance when one walks toward no goal, or - which is the same thing - when his goal is infinity.
Emile DurkheimThe 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 creative consciousness.
Emile DurkheimToo cheerful a morality is a loose morality; it is appropriate only to decadent peoples and is found only among them.
Emile DurkheimSociological method as we practice it rests wholly on the basic principle that social facts must be studied as things, that is, as realities external to the individual. There is no principle for which we have received more criticism; but none is more fundamental. Indubitably for sociology to be possible, it must above all have an object all its own. It must take cognizance of a reality which is not in the domain of other sciences... there can be no sociology unless societies exist, and that societies cannot exist if there are only individuals.
Emile Durkheim