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

Religious representations are collective representations which express collective realities.

Each new generation is reared by its predecessor; the latter must therefore improve in order to improve its successor. The movement is circular.

When mores are sufficient, laws are unnecessary. When mores are insufficient, laws are unenforceable.

To pursue a goal which is by definition unattainable is to condemn oneself to a state of perpetual unhappiness.

What history teaches us is that man does not change arbitrarily; he does not transform himself at will on hearing the voices of inspired prophets. The reason is that all change, in colliding with the inherited institutions of the past, is inevitably hard and laborious; consequently it only takes place in response to the demands of necessity. For change to be brought about it is not enough that it should be seen as desirable; it must be the product of changes within the whole network of diverse casual relationships which then determine the situation of man.

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.