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

Religious representations are collective representations which express collective realities.

Each victim of suicide gives his act a personal stamp which expresses his temperament, the special conditions in which he is involved, and which, consequently, cannot be explained by the social and general causes of the phenomenon.

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.

Sociological method as we practice it rests wholly on the basic principle that social facts must be studied as things, that is, as realities external to the individual. There is no principle for which we have received more criticism; but none is more fundamental. Indubitably for sociology to be possible, it must above all have an object all its own. It must take cognizance of a reality which is not in the domain of other sciences... there can be no sociology unless societies exist, and that societies cannot exist if there are only individuals.

Irrespective of any external, regulatory force, our capacity for feeling is in itself an insatiable and bottomless abyss.

An act cannot be defined by the end sought by the actor, for an identical system of behaviour may be adjustable to too many different ends without altering its nature.