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 BergsonRead
It is with our entire past ... that we desire, will and act ... from this survival of the past it follows that consciousness cannot go through the same state twice. The circumstances may still be the same, but they will act no longer on the same person ... that is why our duration is irreversible.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Our past shapes our desires and actions, making every experience unique and irreversible.
This quote by Henri Bergson highlights the idea that our consciousness and experiences are deeply influenced by our past. Each moment we encounter is not just a repetition of the previous ones; instead, we are constantly evolving and changing due to our memories and experiences. This irreversibility suggests that while situations may appear similar, they can never be the same for us, as we bring our accumulated past into every new experience.
Themes
PastConsciousnessIrreversibilityExperienceChange
In practice
Example use cases
During a speech on personal growth, one might use the quote to illustrate how experiences shape who we become.
More from Henri Bergson
All quotes →To exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly.
Henri BergsonRead
Laughter is the corrective force which prevents us from becoming cranks.
Henri BergsonRead
I believe that the time given to refutation in philosophy is usually time lost. Of the many attacks directed by many thinkers against each other, what now remains? Nothing, or assuredly very little. That which counts and endures is the modicum of positive truth which each contributes. The true statement is, of itself, able to displace the erroneous idea, and becomes, without our having taken the trouble of refuting anyone, the best of refutations.
Henri BergsonRead
Religion is to mysticism what popularization is to science
Henri BergsonRead
And I also see how this body influences external images: it gives back movement to them.
Henri BergsonRead
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Everyone who observes himself doubting observes a truth, and about that which he observes he is certain; therefore he is certain about a truth. Everyone therefore who doubts whether truth exists has in himself a truth on which not to doubt.... Hence one who can doubt at all ought not to doubt the existence of truth.
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One human life is deeper than the ocean. Strange fishes and sea-monsters and mighty plants live in the rock-bed of our spirits. The whole of human history is an undiscovered continent deep in our souls. There are dolphins, plants that dream, magic birds inside us. The sky is inside us. The earth is in us.
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America, how can I write a holy litany in your silly mood?
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Maybe right and wrong did not move, but understanding of them did. The wrenching pain of walking the same path, even for a short space, tore away the willingness to judge.
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The worshiper is the father of the gods.
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My idea of our civilization is that it is a shoddy, poor thing and full of cruelties, vanities, arrogances, meannesses and hypocrisies.
Mark TwainRead