There is a collective as well as an individual humor inclining peoples to sadness or cheerfulness, making them see things in bright or somber lights. In fact, only society can pass a collective opinion on the value of human life; for this the individual is incompetent.

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.

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

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

There is no sociology worthy of the name which does not possess a historical character.

It is a quite remarkable fact that the great religions of the most civilized peoples are more deeply fraught with sadness than the simpler beliefs of earlier societies. This certainly does not mean that the current of pessimism is eventually to submerge the other, but it proves that it does not lose ground and that it does not seem destined to disappear.

There is a collective as well as an individual humor inclining peoples to sadness or cheerfulness, making them see things in bright or somber lights. In fact, only society can pass a collective opinion on the value of human life; for this the individual is incompetent.