Emile Durkheim Quotes

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

Religions have a strong binding function and a cohesive element. They emphasize the primacy of the community as opposed to the individual, and they also help set one community apart from another that doesn't share their beliefs.

Religions tend to disappear with man's good fortune.

I like to read about different religions - Judaism, Islam, Christianity, Hinduism and Buddhism.

A civilization is destroyed only when its gods are destroyed.

Religion can be both good and bad - it is spirituality that counts.

Religion is one dimension of culture, a transcendent element of it.

Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful.

Religion to me really means ethical systems.

Americans know more about religion than almost any other topic.

I think the world would be much poorer without religion, speaking generally.

You can't write about the past and ignore religion. It was such a fundamental, mind-shaping, driving force for pre-modern societies. I'm very interested in what religion does to us - its capacity to create love and empathy or hatred and violence.

I think there's a difference between God and religion.

Someone once told me that religion is like a knife: You can stab someone with it, or you can slice bread with it.

Religion is the frozen thought of man out of which they build temples.

It is certain that if you would have the whole secret of a people, you must enter into the intimacy of their religion.

You can have religion with spirituality. You can also have religion without spirituality.

On a personal note, myself, I find religion - I can understand it, I can understand why we have it, as a kind of force on the planet. And I also at the same time think it's ludicrous.

I don't know if I would call myself a religious human.

Many moments in religion seem attractive to me even though I can't believe in any of it.

To me, religion is an agreement between a group of people about what God is. Spirituality is a one-on-one relationship.

I feel like that religions generally ask the biggest questions. They may not always have the best answers, but they're the zone of human activity that regularly asks the biggest questions.

Theology is unnecessary.

From a young kid, I was quite interested in religion.

Religion is part of the human make-up. It's also part of our cultural and intellectual history. Religion was our first attempt at literature, the texts, our first attempt at cosmology, making sense of where we are in the universe, our first attempt at health care, believing in faith healing, our first attempt at philosophy.