Men have been obliged to make for themselves a notion of what religion is, long before the science of religions started its methodical comparisons.

Man could not live if he were entirely impervious to sadness. Many sorrows can be endured only by being embraced, and the pleasure taken in them naturally has a somewhat melancholy character.

One does not advance when one walks toward no goal, or - which is the same thing - when his goal is infinity.

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.

It is only by historical analysis that we can discover what makes up man, since it is only in the course of history that he is formed.

It is not human nature which can assign the variable limits necessary to our needs. They are thus unlimited so far as they depend on the individual alone. Irrespective of any external regulatory force, our capacity for feeling is in itself an insatiable and bottomless abyss.

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