When mores are sufficient, laws are unnecessary. When mores are insufficient, laws are unenforceable.

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

The roles of art, morality, religion, political faith, science itself are not to repair organic exhaustion nor to provide sound functioning of the organs. All this supraphysical life is built and expanded not because of the demands of the cosmic environment but because of the demands of the social environment.

It is science, and not religion, which has taught men that things are complex and difficult to understand.

The 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.

Too cheerful a morality is a loose morality; it is appropriate only to decadent peoples and is found only among them.

Religious phenomena are naturally arranged in two fundamental categories: beliefs and rites. The first are states of opinion, and consist in representations; the second are determined modes of action.