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The present contains nothing more than the past, and what is found in the effect was already in the cause.

— Henri Bergson Creative Evolution (1907)

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More quotes by Henri Bergson

This explains the primary mission which he feels to be entrusted to him, that of an intensifier of religious faith.

The Two Sources of Morality and Religion (1932)

Religion is to mysticism what popularization is to science.

The Two Sources of Morality and Religion (1932)

The universe is a machine for making gods.

The Two Sources of Morality and Religion (1932)

Life does not proceed by the association and addition of elements, but by dissociation and division.

Creative Evolution (1907)

Wherever anything lives, there is, open somewhere, a register in which time is being inscribed.

Creative Evolution (1907)

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A generation which ignores history has no past —and no future.

Robert A. Heinlein Time Enough for Love (1973)

From now on, everything in life will appear blurry to me. What’s the point of wiping my glasses when my vision has already left me?"

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You can never plan the future by the past.

Edmund Burke A Letter to a Member of the National Assembly (1791)

Nothing is there to come, and nothing past,
But an eternal now does always last.

Abraham Cowley Poems (1656)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Henri Bergson (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.