Emile Durkheim — French Sociologist born on April 15, 1858,

David Émile Durkheim was a French sociologist, social psychologist and philosopher. He formally established the academic discipline and — with Karl Marx and Max Weber — is commonly cited as the principal architect of modern social science and father of sociology... (wikipedia)

A person is not merely a single subject distinguished from all the others. It is especially a being to which is attributed a relative autonomy in relation to the environment with which it is most immediately in contact.
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.
Our whole social environment seems to us to be filled with forces which really exist only in our own minds.
One cannot long remain so absorbed in contemplation of emptiness without being increasingly attracted to it. In vain, one bestows on it the name of infinity; this does not change its nature.
Faith is not uprooted by dialectic proof; it must already be deeply shaken by other causes to be unable to withstand the shock of argument.