Gaston Bachelard: Quotes about dreams

Gaston Bachelard was French writer and philosopher. Explore interesting quotes on dreams.
Gaston Bachelard: 70 quotes5 likes

“I should say: the house shelters day-dreaming, the house protects the dreamer, the house allows one to dream in peace.”

Gaston Bachelard 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.”

Gaston Bachelard

Introduction, sect. 6
La poétique de la rêverie (The Poetics of Reverie) (1960)

“A word is a bud attempting to become a twig. How can one not dream while writing? It is the pen which dreams. The blank page gives the right to dream.”

Gaston Bachelard

Introduction, sect. 6
La poétique de la rêverie (The Poetics of Reverie) (1960)

“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.”

Gaston Bachelard book The Poetics of Space

Source: La poétique de l'espace (The Poetics of Space) (1958), Ch. 1

“True poetry is a function of awakening. It awakens us, but it must retain the memory of previous dreams.”

Gaston Bachelard book L'Eau et les Rêves

Introduction
L'eau et les rêves (Water and Dreams) 1942

“Words … are little houses, each with its cellar and garret. Common sense lives on the ground floor, always ready to engage in ‘foreign commerce’ on the same level as the others, as the passers-by, who are never dreamers. To go upstairs in the word house is to withdraw step by step; while to go down to the cellar is to dream, it is losing oneself in the distant corridors of an obscure etymology, looking for treasures that cannot be found in words. To mount and descend in the words themselves—this is a poet’s life. To mount too high or descend too low is allowed in the case of poets, who bring earth and sky together.”

Gaston Bachelard book The Poetics of Space

Source: La poétique de l'espace (The Poetics of Space) (1958), Ch. 6