Quote

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.

Henri Bergson

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Henri Bergson
Age: 81 †
Born: 1859
Born: October 18
Died: 1941
Died: January 4
Philosopher
Professor
Sociologist
Paris
France
Henri-Louis Bergson
H. Bergson
Henry Bergson
Henri Louis Bergson
Berxon
Persons
Fail
Stamps
Person
Laughter
Bores
Must
Kindness
Directed
Avenges
Make
Failing
Intended
Corrective
Would
Objects
Sympathy
Humiliate
Liberty
Impression
Stamp
Taken
Object
Bore
Society
Painful
Liberties

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There is nothing in philosophy which could not be said in everyday language.
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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.
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We are free when our actions emanate from our total personality, when they express it, when they resemble it in the indefinable way a work of art sometimes does the artist.
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When it is said that an object occupies a large space in the soul or even that it fills it entirely, we ought to understand by this simply that its image has altered the shade of a thousand perceptions or memories, and that in this sense it pervades them, although it does not itself come into view.
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Some other faculty than the intellect is necessary for the apprehension of reality.
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In laughter we always find an unavowed intention to humiliate and consequently to correct our neighbour.
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And I also see how this body influences external images: it gives back movement to them.
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There are manifold tones of mental life, or, in other words, our psychic life may be lived at different heights, now nearer to action, now further removed from it, according to the degree of our attention to life.
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It is of man's essence to create materially and morally, to fabricate things and to fabricate himself. Homo faber is the definition I propose ... Homo faber, Homo sapiens, I pay my respects to both, for they tend to merge.
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In reality, the past is preserved by itself automatically.
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There is no greater joy than that of feeling oneself a creator. The triumph of life is expressed by creation.
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Realism is in the work when idealism is in the soul, and it is only through idealism that we resume contact with reality.
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Action on the move creates its own route, creates to a very great extent the conditions under which it is to be fulfilled and thus baffles all calculation.
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It is emotion that drives the intelligence forward in spite of obstacles.
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There is nothing [that] disarms us like laughter.
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The movement of the stream is distinct from the river bed, although it must adopt its winding course.
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