This solidarity can grow only in inverse ratio to personality... Solidarity which comes from likenesses is at its maximum when the collective conscience completely envelops our whole conscience and coincides in all points with it... when this solidarity exercises its force, our personality vanishes, as our definition permits us to say, for we are no longer ourselves, but the collective life.

If religion has given birth to all that is essential in society, it is because the idea of society is the soul of religion.

Even one well-made observation will be enough in many cases, just as one well-constructed experiment often suffices for the establishment of a law.

By definition, sacred beings are separated beings. That which characterizes them is that there is a break of continuity between them and the profane beings.

If one class of society is obliged, in order to live, to take any price for its services, while another can abstain from such action thanks to resources at its disposal which, however, are not necessarily due to any social superiority, the second has an unjust advantage over the first at law. In other words, there cannot be rich and poor a birth without there being unjust contracts.

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

When man discovered the mirror, he began to lose his soul.