"Fortunately, some are born with spiritual immune systems that sooner or later give rejection to the illusory worldview grafted upon then from birth through social conditioning. They begin sensing that something is amiss, and start looking for answers. Inner knowledge and anomalous outer experiences show them a side of reality others are oblivious to, and so begins the journey of awakening. Each step of the journey is made by following the heart instead of the crowd, and by choosing knowledge over veils of ignorance."
"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."
7 likes
Source: Henri Bergson (2013). “Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic”, p.67, Courier Corporation
About the author
Same author
More quotes by Henri Bergson
"To exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly."
"The idea of the future, pregnant with an infinity of possibilities, is thus more fruitful than the future itself, and this is why we find more charm in hope than in possession, in dreams than in reality."
"I would say act like a man of thought and think like a man of action."
"Homo sapiens, the only creature endowed with reason, is also the only creature to pin its existence on things unreasonable."
"Some other faculty than the intellect is necessary for the apprehension of reality."