Social life comes from a double source, the likeness of consciences and the division of social labour.

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

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.

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.

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

The first and most basic rule is to consider social facts as things.

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.