black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

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

Laughter is, above all, a corrective. Being intended to humiliate, it must make a painful impression on the person against whom it is directed. By laughter, society avenges itself for the liberties taken with it. It would fail in its object if it bore the stamp of sympathy or kindness.
HENRI BERGSON

Boredom Director Humiliate Impression Kindness Laughter Object Pain Society Sympathy
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

Character Compensation Intelligence Man
We are free when our actions emanate from our total personality, when they express it, when they resemble it in the indefinable way a work of art sometimes does the artist.
HENRI BERGSON

Action Artist Expression Freedom
Laughter appears to stand in need of an echo, Listen to it carefully: it is not an articulate, clear, well-defined sound; it is something which would fain be prolonged by reverberating from one to another.
HENRI BERGSON

Appearance Definition Laughter Oneself Sound
It is emotion that drives the intelligence forward in spite of obstacles.
HENRI BERGSON

Drive Emotion Forward Obstacle
Realism is in the work when idealism is in the soul, and it is only through idealism that we resume contact with reality.
HENRI BERGSON

Contact Ideal Reality Resume Work
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 Attitude Eyes Image Ourselves Reproduction Run Success
The only cure for vanity is laughter. And the only fault that’s laughable is vanity.
HENRI BERGSON

Errors Laughter Mistake Vanity
To perceive means to immobilize. To say this is to say that we seize, in the act of perception, something which outruns perception itself.
HENRI BERGSON

Act Meaning Perception Talk
Laughter is the corrective force which prevents us from becoming cranks.
HENRI BERGSON

Correct Force Laughter Prevent
The movement of the stream is distinct from the river bed, although it must adopt its winding course.
HENRI BERGSON

Movement River Source Stream Wind
I cannot escape the objection that there is no state of mind, however simple, that does not change every moment.
HENRI BERGSON

Escape Moments Object Simple Time
There is no greater joy than that of feeling oneself a creator. The triumph of life is expressed by creation.
HENRI BERGSON

Creation Expression Greatness Joy
I see plainly how external images influence the image that I call my body : they transmit movement to it.
HENRI BERGSON

Image Influence Movement Myself Sight
Wherever anything lives, there is, open somewhere, a register in which time is being inscribed.
HENRI BERGSON

Live Open Register Time
In laughter we always find an unavowed intention to humiliate and consequently to correct our neighbour.
HENRI BERGSON

Correct Humiliate Intention Laughter Neighbor Ourselves
For life is tendency, and the essence of a tendency is to develop in the form of a sheaf, creating, by its very growth, divergent directions among which its impetus is divided.
HENRI BERGSON

Development Direction Essence Form Growth Life
There is nothing [that] disarms us like laughter.
HENRI BERGSON

Guard Laughter Ourselves
Intuition is a method of feeling one’s way intellectually into the inner heart of a thing to locate what is unique and inexpressible in it.
HENRI BERGSON

Expression Feeling Heart Intellectual Unique
Our laughter is always the laughter of a group.
HENRI BERGSON

Group Laughter Ourselves
Homo sapiens, the only creature endowed with reason, is also the only creature to pin its existence on things unreasonable.
HENRI BERGSON

Brain Known Question Reason Science Wisdom
Sex-appeal is the keynote of our whole civilization.
HENRI BERGSON

Appearance Civilization Sex
One can always reason with reason.
HENRI BERGSON

Oneself Reason
The emotion felt by a man in the presence of nature certainly counts for something in the origin of religions.
HENRI BERGSON

Emotion Feeling Nature Origin Presence Religion
And I also see how this body influences external images: it gives back movement to them.
HENRI BERGSON

Body Influence Movement Myself Return
ACT as men of thought; THINK as men of action.
HENRI BERGSON

Act Action Man Thinking
Is it astonishing that, like children trying to catch smoke by closing their hands, philosophers so often see the object they would grasp fly before them?
HENRI BERGSON

Astonish Children Fly Object Philosophy Try

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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Henri Bergson Quotes