Henri Bergson Quotes on Time
Henri Bergson was a 19th and 20th-century French philosopher, one of the most influential thinkers of the early 20th century and a major figure of continental philosophy in the period between phenomenology's founding and the rise of existentialism. This page collects quotes attributed to Henri Bergson on the topic of time, drawn from across the philosopher's works.
Quotes
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Attributed to Henri Bergson:
“To exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly.”
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“The present contains nothing more than the past, and what is found in the effect was already in the cause.”
Creative Evolution (1907), Chapter I, as translated by Arthur Mitchell (1911), p. 14.; italicized in the original. -
Attributed to Henri Bergson:
“Wherever anything lives, there is, open somewhere, a register in which time is being inscribed.”
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“I cannot escape the objection that there is no state of mind , however simple , that does not change every moment .”
An Introduction to Metaphysics (1903), translated by T. E. Hulme . New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1912, p. 44 -
“All the living hold together, and all yield to the same tremendous push. The animal takes its stand on the plant , man bestrides animality, and the whole of humanity , in space and in time , is one immense army galloping beside and before and behind each of us in an overwhelming charge able to beat down every resistance and clear the most formidable obstacles, perhaps even death .”
Creative Evolution (1907), Chapter III. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1911, p. 271