Émile Durkheim

Society is the source of all that is sacred.

The individual, in order to be free, must submit to society.

Education is the action exercised by the older generations on those who are not yet ready for social life.

Anomie is a state where society provides little moral guidance to individuals.

Collective representations are the result of an immense cooperation which stretches not only through space but also through time.

Sociology is not an auxiliary of any other science; it is a distinct and autonomous science.

The sociologist must place himself in the same state of mind as the physicist, chemist, or biologist when he penetrates into an as yet unexplored region of the scientific domain.

We must not confuse the ideal with the chimerical.

The individual is not the creator of society, but its product.

The collective consciousness is the totality of beliefs and sentiments common to the average members of a society.

Justice is the most perfect form of solidarity.

The family is the elementary social group.

The individual is not an isolated atom; he is a part of a whole.

Every society is a moral society.

We must not explain the social by the individual, but the individual by the social.

The cult of the individual is a social phenomenon.

The individual is sacred, but only because society has made him so.

Science is not a substitute for religion, but it can help us to understand it.

The future of humanity depends on the development of a rational morality.

Solidarity is the foundation of social life.