Quotes from Henri Bergson

Donde hay felicidad, hay creación. Cuanto más rica es la creación, más profunda es la felicidad

There is no pool, however, which has not some dead leaves floating on its surface, no human soul upon which there do not settle habits that make it rigid against itself by making it rigid against others.

A flexible vice may not be so easy to ridicule as a rigid virtue.

Useful professions are clearly meant for the public, but those whose utility is more dubious can only justify their existence by assuming that the public is meant for them.

En nous faisant saisir dans une intuition unique des moments multiples de la durée, elle nous dégage du mouvement d'écoulement des choses, c'est-à-dire du rythme de la nécessité.

It is impossible to consider the mechanism of our intellect and the progress of our science without arriving at the conclusion that between intellect and matter there is, in fact, symmetry, concord and agreement. On one hand, matter resolves itself more and more, in the eyes of the scholar, into mathematical relations, and on the other hand, the essential faculties of our intellect function with an absolute precision only when they are applied to geometry.

You can predict an eclipse a thousand years hence, but you cannot predict what will happen when you pull a bulldog's tail!

Mais l'idée que le monde entier, y compris les êtres vivants, relève de la mathématique pure, n'est qu'une vue a priori de l'esprit, qui remonte aux cartésiens.

Sentar-se no meio de uma fala seria lembrar que se tem corpo. Napoleão, que era psicólogo nas horas vagas, observou que se passa da tragédia à comédia pelo simples fato de se sentar.

Mais, si le souvenir n'a pas été emmagasiné par le cerveau, où donc se conserve-t-il ? - A vrai dire, je ne suis pas sûr que la question "où" ait encore un sens quand on ne parle plus d'un corps.

The theory of knowledge is inseparable from the theory of life. They must unite so that each may move the other forward.

Pelo temor que o riso inspira, reprime as excentricidades, mantém constantemente despertas e em contato mútuo certas atividades de ordem acessória que correriam o risco de isolar-se e adormecer; suaviza, enfim, tudo o que puder restar de rigidez mecânica na superfície do corpo social.

But this metaphysics, like this science, has enfolded its deeper life in a rich tissue of symbols, forgetting something that, while science needs symbols for its analytical development, the main object of metaphysics is to do away with symbols.

No aprehendemos de nuestros sentimientos más que su aspecto impersonal, aquel que el lenguaje ha podido clasificar de una vez por todas porque. más o menos, en las mismas condiciones es el mismo para todos los hombres. Así, hasta en nuestro propio individuo la individualidad se nos escapa.

Solo empezamos a ser imitables ahí donde dejamos de ser nosotros mismos. Quiero decir que solo de puede imitar de nuestros gestos aquello que tienen de mecánicamente uniforme y, por eso mismo, de extraño a nuestra viva personalidad. Imitar a alguien es extraer la parte de automatismo que este ha dejado introducirse en su persona.

If the senses and the consciousness had an unlimited scope, if in the double direction of matter and mind the faculty of perceiving was indefinite, one would not need to conceive any more than to reason. Conceiving is a make-shift when perception is not granted us, and reasoning is done in order to fill up the gaps of perception or to extend its scope.

In a society composed of pure intelligences there would probably be no more tears, though perhaps there would still be laughter; whereas highly emotional souls, in tune and unison with life, in whom every event would be sentimentally prolonged and re-echoed, would neither know nor understand laughter. Try

In a society composed of pure intelligences there would probably be no more tears, though perhaps there would still be laughter; whereas highly emotional souls, in tune and unison with life, in whom every event would be sentimentally prolonged and re-echoed, would neither know nor understand laughter.

W]ithin our ego, there is succession without mutual externality; outside the ego, in pure space, mutual externality without succession.

In realtà, ogni momento della nostra vita è creazione; per un essere cosciente, "esistere" significa cambiare; cambiare nel maturarsi; e maturarsi nel creare se stesso all'infinito.

Either there is no philosophy possible, and all knowledge of things is a practical knowledge aimed at the profit to be drawn from them, or else philosophy consists in placing oneself within the object itself by an effort of intuition.

O maior inimigo do riso é a emoção.

O humorista é no caso um moralista disfarçado em cientista, algo como um anatomista que só faça dissecação para nos desagradar; e o humor, no sentido restrito que damos à palavra, é de fato uma transposição do moral em científico.

Talvez não mais se chorasse numa sociedade em que só houvesse puras inteligências, mas provavelmente se risse; por outro lado, almas invariavelmente sensíveis, afinadas em uníssono com a vida, numa sociedade onde tudo se estendesse em ressonância afetiva, nem conheceriam nem compreenderiam o riso.