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 More Quotes by Henri Bergson More Quotes From Henri Bergson To ease another's burden, help to carry it. Henri Bergson burden ease helping 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 faculty intelligence tools The vital spirit. L'élan vital Henri Bergson spirit There are manifold tones of mental life, or, in other words, our psychic life may be lived at different heights, now nearer to action, now further removed from it, according to the degree of our attention to life. Henri Bergson psychics degrees different 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 characteristics inferiority men 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 running attitude art In laughter we always find an unavowed intention to humiliate and consequently to correct our neighbour. Henri Bergson neighbour intention laughter Our laughter is always the laughter of a group. Henri Bergson laughter joy happiness However spontaneous it seems, laughter always implies a kind of secret freemasonry, or even complicity, with other laughers, real or imaginary. Henri Bergson laughter real secret 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 laughter taken kindness The prestige of the Nobel Prize is due to many causes, but in particular to its twofold idealistic and international character: idealistic in that it has been designed for works of lofty inspiration; international in that it is awarded after the production of different countries has been minutely studied and the intellectual balance sheet of the whole world has been drawn up. Free from all other considerations and ignoring any but intellectual values, the judges have deliberately taken their place in what the philosophers have called a community of the mind. Henri Bergson taken inspiration country Europe is overpopulated, the world will soon be in the same condition, and if the self-reproduction of man is not rationalized... we shall have war. Henri Bergson self men war When it is said that an object occupies a large space in the soul or even that it fills it entirely, we ought to understand by this simply that its image has altered the shade of a thousand perceptions or memories, and that in this sense it pervades them, although it does not itself come into view. Henri Bergson space views memories On the other hand, the pleasure caused by laughter, even on the stage, is not an unadulterated enjoyment; it is not a pleasure that is exclusively esthetic or altogether disinterested. It always implies a secret or unconscious intent, if not of each one of us, at all events of society as a whole. In laughter we always find an unavowed intention to humiliate, and consequently to correct our neighbour, if not in his will, at least in his deed. Henri Bergson laughter secret hands The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend. Henri Bergson There is no greater joy than of feeling oneself a creator. The triumph of life is expressed by creation. Henri Bergson Think like a man of action, act like a man of thought. Henri Bergson The only cure for vanity is laughter, and the only fault that is laughable is vanity. Henri Bergson fault only vanity laughter To perceive means to immobilize... we seize, in the act of perception, something which outruns perception itself. Henri Bergson act which something perception Intelligence is the faculty of making artificial objects, especially tools to make tools. Henri Bergson make artificial intelligence tools
