Émile Durkheim was a French sociologist, philosopher, and academic who formally established the academic discipline of sociology, pioneered quantitative sociological methodology, and introduced fundamental concepts such as collective consciousness, social facts, and anomie.
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French Sociologist, Principal Architect of Modern Social Science
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Honor the extraordinary legacy of Émile Durkheim on November 15 with these curated quotes, philosophical reflections, and heartfelt tributes celebrating their monumental impact on French Sociologist, Principal Architect of Modern Social Science.
“Society is not a mere sum of individuals. Rather, the system formed by their association represents a specific reality which has its own characteristics.”
“A social fact is any way of acting, whether fixed or not, capable of exerting over the individual an external constraint.”
“The collective consciousness is the highest form of the psychic life, since it is the consciousness of the consciousnesses.”
“To love society is to love something beyond us and something in ourselves.”
“We are who we are because of who we were together.”
“When a society is in a state of anomie, collective rules are weakened and individual desires are freed from all regulation.”
“Man is more vulnerable to self-destruction the more he is detached from any collectivity.”
“Even the most primitive religions are not illusions; they are the symbolic expression of society's veneration of its own unity.”
“The feeling of solidarity is the mother of all moral sentiments.”
“Education is the influence exercised by adult generations on those that are not yet ready for social life.”
French Sociologist, Principal Architect of Modern Social Science
