“If we did not have a feminine being within us, how would we rest ourselves?” IfsFeminine Author:Gaston Bachelard
“All knowledge is in response to a question. If there were no question, there would be no scientific knowledge. Nothing proceeds from itself.” IfsWould BeResponseScientific Knowledge Author:Gaston Bachelard
“It is not a question of observation which propels mankind forward as if toward a looking glass of great magnitude; it is an instance of aggrandized reflection that insinuates the human psyche to the inhuman.” IfsHumansMankindReflectionGlassesInstanceObservationMagnitudeInhumanHuman Psyche Author:Gaston Bachelard
“If I were asked to name the chief benefit of the house, I should say: the house shelters day-dreaming, the house protects the dreamer, the house allows one to dream in peace.” IfsShouldHomeDreamHouseNamesPeaceProtectBenefitsChiefsDreamerShelterHypocriteHome HomeHouse And HomeFirst HomeDream HouseOwning A Home Author:Gaston Bachelard
“To live life well is to express life poorly; if one expresses life too well, one is living it no longer.” IfsLifeWellsLive LifeLiving Life Well Author:Gaston Bachelard
“Of course, thanks to the house, a great many of our memories are housed, and if the house is a bit elaborate, if it has a cellar and a garret, nooks and corridors, our memories have refuges that are all the more clearly delineated. All our lives we come back to them in our daydreams. A psychoanalyst should, therefore, turn his attention to this simple localization of our memories. I should like to give the name of topoanalysis to this auxiliary of pyschoanalysis. Topoanalysis, then would be the systematic psychological study of the sites of our intimate lives.” IfsGivingShouldWould BeTurnsCoursesHouseNamesBitsMemoriesSimpleAttentionStudyOur LivesPsychologicalThanksIntimateRefugeSiteOur MemoriesDaydreamingSystematicCorridorsCellars Book:The Poetics of Space Source: The Poetics of Space
“I am a dreamer of words, of written words. I think I am reading; a word stops me. I leave the page. The syllables of the word begin to move around. Stressed accents begin to invert. The word abandons its meaning like an overload which is too heavy and prevents dreaming. Then words take on other meanings as if they had the right to be young. And the words wander away, looking in the nooks and crannies of vocabulary for new company, bad company.” IfsThinkingDreamMovingYoungReadingCompanyWrittenPagesHeavyWanderAbandonDreamerAccentsVocabularyStressedSyllablesWritten WordBe YoungOverloadBad CompanyNew CompanyInvert Author:Gaston Bachelard
“If there is any realm where distinction is especially difficult, it is the realm of childhood memories, the realm of beloved images harbored in memory since childhood. These memories which live by the image and in virtue of the image become, at certain times of our lives and particularly during the quiet age, the origin and matter of a complex reverie: the memory dreams, and reverie remembers.” IfsMatterDreamAgeRememberCertainDifficultMemoriesVirtueOur LivesChildhoodQuietComplexesBelovedRealmsDistinctionLive ByChildhood MemoriesReverie Author:Gaston Bachelard
“Very often, I confess, the teller of dreams bores me. His dream could perhaps interest me if it were frankly worked on. But to hear a glorious tale of his insanity! I have not yet clarified, psychoanalytically, this boredom during the recital of other people's dreams. Perhaps I have retained the stiffness of a rationalist. I do not follow the tale of justified incoherence docilely. I always suspect that part of the stupidities being recounted are invented.” PeopleIfsDreamInterestStupidityTalesInsanityBoredomGloriousSuspectsBoresJustifiedIncoherenceRecitalsStiffness Author:Gaston Bachelard
“A universe comes to contribute to our happiness when reverie comes to accentuate our repose. You must tell the man who wants to dream well to begin by being happy. Then reverie plays out its veritable destiny; it becomes poetic reverie and by it, in it, everything becomes beautiful. If the dreamer had "the gift" he would turn his reverie into a work. And this work would be grandiose since the dreamed world is automatically grandiose.” IfsMenWorldWantWellsPlayDreamWould BeBeautifulTurnsUniverseDestinyHe ManPoeticDreamerReposeReverieGrandioseAccentuate Author:Gaston Bachelard
“What action could bodies and substances have if they were not named in a further increase of dignity where common nouns become proper nouns?” IfsBodyActionCommonDignityIncreaseSubstanceNouns Author:Gaston Bachelard
“The reverie would not last if it were not nourished by the images of the sweetness of living, by the illusions of happiness.” IfsLastsHappinessIllusionSweetnessReverie Author:Gaston Bachelard
“For in the end, the irreality function functions as well in the face of man as in the face of the cosmos. What would we know of others if we did not imagine things?” IfsKnowsMenWellsEndsRealityFacesImaginationImagineFunctionCosmos Author:Gaston Bachelard
“Perhaps it is even a good idea to stir up a rivalry between conceptual and imaginative activity. In any case, one will encounter nothing but disappointments if he intends to make them cooperate. The image can not provide matter for a concept. By giving stability to the image, the concept would stifle its life.” IfsGivingIdeasMatterImaginationCasesActivityConceptsDisappointmentEncountersStabilityGood IdeasCan NotImaginativeRivalry Author:Gaston Bachelard
“The image can only be studied through the image, by dreaming images as they gather in reverie. It is a non-sense to claim to study imagination objectively since one really receives the image only if he admires it. Already in comparing one image to another, one runs the risk of losing participation in its individuality.” IfsDreamRunningImaginationStudyRiskLosingClaimsIndividualityAdmireCompareParticipationObjectivityReverie Author:Gaston Bachelard