"Reality seems valueless by comparison with the dreams of fevered imaginations; reality is therefore abandoned."

"Collective representations are the product of the interaction of individuals."

"We must therefore call crime necessary and declare that it cannot be non-existent, that the fundamental conditions of social organization, as they are understood, logically imply it."

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

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