Émile Durkheim

The cult of the individual is a social product.

Sociological method requires external observation.

A religion is a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, that is to say, things set apart and forbidden—beliefs and practices which unite into one single moral community called a Church, all those who adhere to them.

Social facts are ways of acting, thinking, and feeling, external to the individual, and endowed with a power of coercion by virtue of which they control him.

When the individual is detached from society, he becomes anomic.

The totality of beliefs and sentiments common to the average members of a society forms a determinate system with a life of its own; it can be termed the collective or common consciousness.

The division of labor is not merely an economic institution; it is a moral institution.

Crime is normal because a society exempt from it is utterly impossible.

Society is not a mere sum of individuals; it is a system formed by their association and represents a specific reality which has its own characteristics.

The profane is that which is common and utilitarian.

Collective representations are the result of an immense cooperation which has endured through centuries.

Anomie is a state where the norms regulating behavior have broken down.

The more primitive societies are, the more they resemble each other.

The individual is not born into society, but is made for society.

To be free is not to do what one pleases; it is to be master of oneself.

The state is a group of public officials who are charged with representing the collective consciousness and with maintaining the collective order.

The individual submits to society and this submission is the condition of his liberation.

Moral rules are not arbitrary; they are necessary for the existence of society.

The collective consciousness is the highest form of psychic life, since it is a consciousness of consciousnesses.

The individual is merely the substratum of society.