Science cannot describe individuals, but only types. If human societies cannot be classified, they must remain inaccessible to scientific description.

The first and most basic rule is to consider social facts as things.

Socialism is not a science, a sociology in miniature: it is a cry of pain.

Sociological 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.

Our whole social environment seems to us to be filled with forces which really exist only in our own minds.

It is too great comfort which turns a man against himself. Life is most readily renounced at the time and among the classes where it is least harsh.

Man could not live if he were entirely impervious to sadness. Many sorrows can be endured only by being embraced, and the pleasure taken in them naturally has a somewhat melancholy character.