Henri Bergson Quotes


The only cure for vanity is laughter, and the only fault that is laughable is vanity. Henri Bergson Laughter 259
The present contains nothing more than the past, and what is found in the effect was already in the cause. Henri Bergson Past 101
To exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly. Henri Bergson Change 83
To perceive means to immobilize... we seize, in the act of perception, something which outruns perception itself. Henri Bergson Perception 83
A situation is always comic if it participates simultaneously in two series of events which are absolutely independent of each other, and if it can be interpreted in two quite different meanings. Henri Bergson Absolutely 81
We regard intelligence as man's main characteristic and we know that there is no superiority which intelligence cannot confer on us, no inferiority for which it cannot compensate. Henri Bergson Intelligence 76
There is nothing in philosophy which could not be said in everyday language. Henri Bergson Everyday 75
Think like a man of action, and act like a man of thought. Henri Bergson Actions 70
Our laughter is always the laughter of a group. Henri Bergson Group 70
Think like a man of action, act like a man of thought. Henri Bergson Act 69
In laughter we always find an unavowed intention to humiliate and consequently to correct our neighbour. Henri Bergson Consequently 68
You will obtain a vision of matter that is perhaps fatiguing for your imagination, but pure and stripped of what the requirements of life make you add to it in external perception. Henri Bergson Imagination 64
I cannot escape the objection that there is no state of mind, however simple, that does not change every moment. Henri Bergson Uncategorized 61
There is no greater joy than that of feeling oneself a creator. The triumph of life is expressed by creation. Henri Bergson Happiness 61
The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend. Henri Bergson Mind 56
And I also see how this body influences external images: it gives back movement to them. Henri Bergson Body 54
It seems that laughter needs an echo. Henri Bergson Echo 51
In just the same way the thousands of successive positions of a runner are contracted into one sole symbolic attitude, which our eye perceives, which art reproduces, and which becomes for everyone the image of a man who runs. Henri Bergson Art 50
In reality, the past is preserved by itself automatically. Henri Bergson Automatically 49
Wherever anything lives, there is, open somewhere, a register in which time is being inscribed. Henri Bergson Uncategorized 48
Spirit borrows from matter the perceptions on which it feeds and restores them to matter in the form of movements which it has stamped with its own freedom. Henri Bergson Spirituality 47
The major task of the twentieth century will be to explore the unconscious, to investigate the subsoil of the mind. Henri Bergson Uncategorized 44
Europe is overpopulated the world will soon be in the same condition and if the selfreproduction of man is not rationalized... we shall have war. Henri Bergson War 44
Homo sapiens, the only creature endowed with reason, is also the only creature to pin its existence on things unreasonable. Henri Bergson Uncategorized 42
When we make the cerebral state the beginning of an action, and in no sense the condition of a perception, we place the perceived images of things outside the image of our body, and thus replace perception within the things themselves. Henri Bergson Action 41
The motive power of democracy is love. Henri Bergson Power 41
Genius is that which forces the inertia of humanity to learn. Henri Bergson Genius 40
Intelligence is the faculty of making artificial objects, especially tools to make tools. Henri Bergson Intelligence 39
Life does not proceed by the association and addition of elements, but by dissociation and division. Henri Bergson Life 37
Instinct perfected is a faculty of using and even constructing organized instruments; intelligence perfected is the faculty of making and using unorganized instruments. Henri Bergson Intelligence 37
The idea of the future pregnant with an infinity of possibilities is thus more fruitful than the future itself and this is why we find more charm in hope than in possession in dreams than in reality. Henri Bergson Dream 37
I see plainly how external images influence the image that I call my body: they transmit movement to it. Henri Bergson Body 36
Art has no other object than to set aside the symbols of practical utility, the generalities that are conventionally and socially accepted, everything in fact which masks reality from us, in order to set us face to face with reality itself. Henri Bergson Uncategorized 35
Religion is to mysticism what popularization is to science. Henri Bergson Religion 24

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Henri Bergson Quotes

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