At first sight, one does not see what relations there can be between religion and logic. — Emile Durkheim

It is science, and not religion, which has taught men that things are complex and difficult to understand. — Emile Durkheim

Men have been obliged to make for themselves a notion of what religion is, long before the science of religions started its methodical comparisons. — Emile Durkheim

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

Man is a moral being, only because he lives in society. Let all social life disappear and morality will disappear with it. — Emile Durkheim

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

The wise man, knowing how to enjoy achieved results without having constantly to replace them with others, finds in them an attachment to life in the hour of difficulty. — Emile Durkheim

The liberal professions, and in a wider sense the well–to–do classes, are certainly those with the liveliest taste for knowledge and the most active intellectual life. — Emile Durkheim

It is too great comfort which turns a man against himself. Life is most readily renounced at the time and among the classes where it is least harsh. — Emile Durkheim

That men have an interest in knowing the world which surrounds them, and consequently that their reflection should have been applied to it at an early date, is something that everyone will readily admit. — Emile Durkheim

Sadness does not inhere in things; it does not reach us from the world and through mere contemplation of the world. It is a product of our own thought. We create it out of whole cloth. — Emile Durkheim

The Christian conceives of his abode on Earth in no more delightful colors than the Jainist sectarian. He sees in it only a time of sad trial; he also thinks that his true country is not of this world. — Emile Durkheim

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

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

Religious phenomena are naturally arranged in two fundamental categories: beliefs and rites. The first are states of opinion, and consist in representations; the second are determined modes of action. — Emile Durkheim

A mind that questions everything, unless strong enough to bear the weight of its ignorance, risks questioning itself and being engulfed in doubt. — Emile Durkheim

The man whose whole activity is diverted to inner meditation becomes insensible to all his surroundings. — Emile Durkheim

Religious representations are collective representations which express collective realities. — Emile Durkheim