Henri Bergson Quotes

Intuition and concepts constitute... the elements of all our knowledge, so that neither concepts without an intuition in some way corresponding to them, nor intuition without concepts, can yield knowledge.

Logic works, metaphysics contemplates.

All our knowledge begins with the senses, proceeds then to the understanding, and ends with reason. There is nothing higher than reason.

All human knowledge thus begins with intuitions, proceeds thence to concepts, and ends with ideas.

Intuition does not in itself amount to knowledge, yet cannot be disregarded by philosophers and psychologists.

Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.

Logic is neither an art nor a science but a dodge.

The true function of philosophy is to educate us in the principles of reasoning and not to put an end to further reasoning by the introduction of fixed conclusions.

Logic is not a body of doctrine, but a mirror-image of the world. Logic is transcendental.

Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind

Can the knowledge deriving from reason even begin to compare with knowledge perceptible by sense?

Many scientists think that philosophy has no place, so for me it's a sad time because the role of reflection, contemplation, meditation, self inquiry, insight, intuition, imagination, creativity, free will, is in a way not given any importance, which is the domain of philosophers.

Metaphysics is the finding of bad reasons for what we believe upon instinct; but to find these reasons is no less an instinct.

Not only the entire ability to think rests on language... but language is also the crux of the misunderstanding of reason with itself.

I never guess. It is a shocking habit destructive to the logical faculty.

The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible.

Human knowledge is dark and uncertain; philosophy is dark, astrology is dark, and geometry is dark.

Scientia is knowledge. It is only in the popular mind that it is equated with facts.

The first step towards philosophy is incredulity.

Logic obviously is important. You need to be able to figure things out, to go to the end of a particular problem. But intuition is very important because it references things that logic alone cannot.

Philosophy likes to keen common sense on the run.

Dogmatism and skepticism are both, in a sense, absolute philosophies; one is certain of knowing, the other of not knowing. What philosophy should dissipate is certainty, whether of knowledge or ignorance.

I enjoyed mathematics from a very young age. At the beginning of college, I had this illusion, which was kind of silly in retrospect, that if I just understood math and physics and philosophy, I could figure out everything else from first principles.

The analysis of the thing is not the thing itself.

Reason enables us to get around in the world of ideas, but cannot prescribe our thoughts.