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

"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 individual is merely a receptacle for social forces."

"The sacred is that which is set apart and forbidden."

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