absentmindedness

And so the ludicrous in events may be defined as absentmindedness in things, just as the ludicrous in an individual character always results from some fundamental absentmindedness in the person, as we have already intimated and shall prove later on.

Laughter : an Essay on the Meaning of the Comic Henri Bergson 1900

And yet, if you reintroduce the idea of absentmindedness, which acts as a go-between, you will see this profound comic element uniting with the most superficial type.

Laughter : an Essay on the Meaning of the Comic Henri Bergson 1900

Despite my many years being a human, I’m still somehow shocked when “yoga people” display human traits – like rudeness, disrespect or just plain absentmindedness.

What do you do with an angry yogi? « martinis & mantras 2009

It may thus be defined as "something mechanical in something living," "a kind of absentmindedness on the part of life."

The Journal of Abnormal Psychology 1916

This corrective is laughter, a social gesture that singles out and represses a special kind of absentmindedness in men and in events.

Laughter : an Essay on the Meaning of the Comic Henri Bergson 1900

There is sadness to the ambition and drive of the eternally brilliant Summers; a modesty and realism to Milton Friedman; an endearing goofiness to Stiglitz (who for all his absentmindedness, notes Hirsh, seems to have a way with women).

Robert Teitelman: Michael Hirsh's "Capital Offense" Robert Teitelman 2010

There is sadness to the ambition and drive of the eternally brilliant Summers; a modesty and realism to Milton Friedman; an endearing goofiness to Stiglitz (who for all his absentmindedness, notes Hirsh, seems to have a way with women).

Robert Teitelman: Michael Hirsh's "Capital Offense" Robert Teitelman 2010

We turned this magnificent bird into a truck for hauling goods and people to a tinkertoy we call the international space station, itself created in a fit of post – Cold War internationalist absentmindedness as a place where people of differing nationality can sing “Kumbaya” while weightless.

Space: The Final Caliphate « Antiwar.com Blog 2009

There is sadness to the ambition and drive of the eternally brilliant Summers; a modesty and realism to Milton Friedman; an endearing goofiness to Stiglitz (who for all his absentmindedness, notes Hirsh, seems to have a way with women).

Robert Teitelman: Michael Hirsh's "Capital Offense" Robert Teitelman 2010

A tall man, with a gravelly voice, steel-gray hair, and eyes that can radiate great joy and deep sadness, Vaillant blends the regal bearing of his old-money ancestors, the emotional directness of his psychiatric colleagues, and a genial absentmindedness.

What Makes Us Happy? 2009