"In just the same way the thousands of successive positions of a runner are contracted into one sole symbolic attitude, which our eye perceives, which art reproduces, and which becomes for everyone the image of a man who runs"

This quote by Henri Bergson is referring to the idea of how a moment in time can be condensed into a single image. He is recommending that when we observe a runner, we are not seeing the countless private positions they have taken in order to move forward, however rather a single symbolic attitude that our eye perceives. This symbolic mindset is then reproduced by art, and ends up being the image of a man running for everybody. Bergson is recommending that this image is a representation of the entire minute, which it is a method of condensing a moment in time into a single image. This concept is essential since it suggests that a minute in time can be recorded and remembered, even if it is only a single image.