Henri Bergson
Henri Bergson
Henri-Louis Bergsonwas a major French philosopher, influential especially in the first half of the 20th century. Bergson convinced many thinkers that the processes of immediate experience and intuition are more significant than abstract rationalism and science for understanding reality...
NationalityFrench
ProfessionPhilosopher
Date of Birth18 October 1859
CountryFrance
happiness laughter joy
Our laughter is always the laughter of a group.
laughter hands secret
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.
laughter real secret
However spontaneous it seems, laughter always implies a kind of secret freemasonry, or even complicity, with other laughers, real or imaginary.
kindness laughter taken
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.
laughter intention neighbour
In laughter we always find an unavowed intention to humiliate and consequently to correct our neighbour.
laughter philosophical echoes
It seems that laughter needs an echo.
laughter echoes mountain
Laughter appears to stand in need of an echo, Listen to it carefully: it is not an articulate, clear, well-defined sound; it is something which would fain be prolonged by reverberating from one to another, something beginning with a crash, to continue in successive rumblings, like thunder in a mountain.
laughter becoming force
Laughter is the corrective force which prevents us from becoming cranks.
laughter humble vanity
The only cure for vanity is laughter. And the only fault that's laughable is vanity.
laughter
There is nothing [that] disarms us like laughter.
action birth cannot centre destined move object
My body, an object destined to move other objects, is, then, a centre of action ; it cannot give birth to a representation.
Sex appeal is the keynote of our civilization.
cure fault french-scientist laughable vanity
The only cure for vanity is laughter, and the only fault that is laughable is vanity.
against consciousness earliest fain follows french-scientist infancy join leaning leave portals present
In its entirety, probably, it follows us at every instant; all that we have felt, thought and willed from our earliest infancy is there, leaning over the present which is about to join it, pressing against the portals of consciousness that would fain leave it outside.