An Introduction to Metaphysics Quotes

“But, then, I cannot escape the objection that there is no state of mind, however simple, which does not change every moment, since there is no consciousness without memory, and no continuation of a state without the addition, to the present feeling, of the memory of past moments. It is this which constitutes duration. Inner duration is the continuous life of a memory which prolongs the past into the present, the present either containing within it in a distinct form the ceaselessly growing image of the past, or, more profoundly, showing by its continual change of quality the heavier and still heavier load we drag behind us as we grow older. Without this survival of the past into the present there would be no duration, but only instantaneity.”
― Henri Bergson, An Introduction to Metaphysics

“Either there is no philosophy possible, and all knowledge of things is a practical knowledge aimed at the profit to be drawn from them, or else philosophy consists in placing oneself within the object itself by an effort of intuition.”
― Henri Bergson, An Introduction to Metaphysics

“But this metaphysics, like this science, has enfolded its deeper life in a rich tissue of symbols, forgetting something that, while science needs symbols for its analytical development, the main object of metaphysics is to do away with symbols.”
― Henri Bergson, An Introduction to Metaphysics

“De diez errores políticos, nueve consisten simplemente en creer todavía verdadero lo que ha cesado de serlo.”
― Henri Bergson, La Pensée et le mouvant