That men have an interest in knowing the world which surrounds them, and consequently that their reflection should have been applied to it at an early date, is something that everyone will readily admit.

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

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.

Social life comes from a double source, the likeness of consciences and the division of social labour.

Reality seems valueless by comparison with the dreams of fevered imaginations; reality is therefore abandoned.

At first sight, one does not see what relations there can be between religion and logic.

Melancholy suicide. - This is connected with a general state of extreme depression and exaggerated sadness, causing the patient no longer to realize sanely the bonds which connect him with people and things about him. Pleasures no longer attract.