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
Is it astonishing that, like children trying to catch smoke by closing their hands, philosophers so often see the object they would grasp fly before them?
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote highlights the elusive nature of knowledge and understanding, much like trying to catch smoke, which slips away from us.
Henri Bergson uses the metaphor of children trying to catch smoke to illustrate the difficulty philosophers face in grasping the complexities of existence and reality. Just as children cannot hold onto smoke, philosophers often find that the concepts and truths they seek remain just out of reach, suggesting the limitations of human understanding and the abstract nature of philosophical inquiry.
Themes
PhilosophyKnowledgeUnderstandingIllusionTruth
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about the nature of reality, this quote can emphasize the challenges of philosophical inquiry.
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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