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
Instinct perfected is a faculty of using and even constructing organized instruments; intelligence perfected is the faculty of making and using unorganized instruments.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote contrasts instinct and intelligence, emphasizing their different roles in using and creating tools.
Henri Bergson highlights the distinction between instinct and intelligence in the process of tool-making and problem-solving. While instinct, when honed, allows individuals to efficiently utilize and create organized tools, it is the perfected intelligence that enables the use of more abstract, unstructured methods to adapt to various situations. This juxtaposition points to a deeper understanding of human cognition and its practical applications.
Themes
InstinctIntelligenceToolsCognitionCreation
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about problem-solving techniques in a workshop.
More from Henri Bergson
All quotes βTo 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
Similar quotes
Because you are defined not by life's imperfect moments, but by your reaction to them. And because there is joy in embracing - rather than running from - the utter absurdity of life.
Jenny LawsonRead
There is nothing so despicable as a secret society that is based upon religious prejudice and that will attempt to defeat a man because of his religious beliefs. Such a society is like a cockroach - it thrives in the dark. So do those who combine for such an end.
William Howard TaftRead
Why would the disciples invent a God whose holiness was more terrifying than the forces of nature that provoked them to invent a god in the first place?
R. C. SproulRead
When my hoe tinkled against the stones, that music echoed to the woods and the sky, and was an accompaniment to my labor which yielded an instant and immeasurable crop. It was no longer beans that I hoed, nor I that hoed beans; and I remembered with as much pity as pride, if I remembered at all, my acquaintances who had gone to the city to attend the oratorios.
Henry David ThoreauRead
The real problem is that through our scientific genius weβve made of the world a neighborhood, but through our moral and spiritual genius weβve failed to make of it a brotherhood.
Martin Luther King, Jr.Read
Going from PayPal, I thought: 'Well, what are some of the other problems that are likely to most affect the future of humanity?' Not from the perspective, 'What's the best way to make money?'
Elon MuskRead