The Best Henri Bergson quotes

In reality, the past is preserved by itself automatically. — Henri Bergson

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

Darwin’s theory of evolution pointed to the conclusion that flux (or becoming), not being, is the essence of reality. Though — Henri Bergson

If reality impacted directly on our senses and our consciousness, if we could have direct communication between the material world and ourselves, art would be unnecessary. — Henri Bergson

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

Materiality begets oblivion. — Henri Bergson

Intelligence is characterized by a natural incomprehension of life. — Henri Bergson

Wherever anything lives, there is, open somewhere, a register in which time is being inscribed. — Henri Bergson

I believe I experience creativity at every moment of my life. — Henri Bergson

Life does not proceed by the association and addition of elements, but by dissociation and division. — Henri Bergson

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

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

There is no greater joy than that of feeling oneself a creator. The triumph of life is expressed by creation. — Henri Bergson

In reality, life is no more made of physico–chemical elements than a curve is composed of straight lines. — Henri Bergson

Time is invention and nothing else. — Henri Bergson

The vital spirit. L’élan vital — Henri Bergson

Our laughter is always the laughter of a group. — Henri Bergson

There is nothing [that] disarms us like laughter. — Henri Bergson

It seems that laughter needs an echo. — Henri Bergson

However spontaneous it seems, laughter always implies a kind of secret freemasonry, or even complicity, with other laughers, real or imaginary. — Henri Bergson

The only cure for vanity is laughter, and the only fault that is laughable is vanity. — Henri Bergson

In laughter we always find an unavowed intention to humiliate and consequently to correct our neighbour. — Henri Bergson

Laughter is the corrective force which prevents us from becoming cranks. — Henri Bergson

I would say act like a man of thought and think like a man of action. — Henri Bergson

Act as men of thought; THINK as men of action. — Henri Bergson

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 on the move creates its own route, creates to a very great extent the conditions under which it is to be fulfilled and thus baffles all calculation. — Henri Bergson

In short, intelligence, considered in what seems to be its original feature, is the faculty of manufacturing artificial objects, especially tools to make tools, and of indefinitely urging the manufacture. — Henri Bergson

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

It is emotion that drives the intelligence forward in spite of obstacles. — Henri Bergson

Only those ideas that are least truly ours can be adequately expressed in words. — Henri Bergson

Intelligence is the faculty of making artificial objects, especially tools to make tools. — Henri Bergson

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

Genius is that which forces the inertia of humanity to learn. — Henri Bergson