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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

We do not condemn it because it is a crime, but it is a crime because we condemn it.