Q0357

Henri Bergson

A verified English rendering from the curated archive.

English

Intelligence is characterized by a natural incomprehension of life.
Thinker Henri Bergson
School Philosophy of life
Source The Creative Mind
Theme Philosophy
Another quotation More from this thinker

Source context

This English passage is associated with The Creative Mind, within the tradition of Philosophy of life. The wording below is a verified rendering prepared for careful reading rather than a claim of unique translation authority.

A short reading

Read in the register of philosophy, the sentence asks the reader to test an assumption rather than to collect a slogan. In Henri Bergson's wider work, similar claims are usually offered as prompts for judgment: what would have to be true for the sentence to hold, and what would follow if it did?

How to cite this quotation

APA: Henri Bergson. (n.d.). Intelligence is characterized by a natural incomprehension of life. In Philosophy Blind Box. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0357

MLA: Henri Bergson. “Intelligence is characterized by a natural incomprehension of….” Philosophy Blind Box, https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0357.

Chicago: Henri Bergson. “Intelligence is characterized by a natural incomprehension of….” Philosophy Blind Box. Accessed 2026. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0357.

Same thinker

More from Henri Bergson

  1. For a conscious being, to exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly.
  2. We do not think real time. But we live it.
  3. The universe… is a machine for the making of gods.

All quotations by Henri Bergson

Same theme

More on philosophy

  1. It is through wonder that people both now begin and first began to philosophize.
  2. A person's character is their destiny.
  3. What is opposed brings together; from what differs comes the finest harmony.
  4. Death is nothing to us: for what has been dissolved has no sensation, and what has no sensation is nothing to us.
  5. Pleasure is the beginning and end of the happy life — not the pleasures of profligates, but freedom from pain in the body and from disturbance in the soul.

Browse the philosophy theme