Gaston Bachelard Quotes & Sayings

“One must always maintain one's connection to the past and yet ceaselessly pull away from it.”

“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.”

“The characteristic of scientific progress is our knowing that we did not know.”

“To live life well is to express life poorly; if one expresses life too well, one is living it no longer.”

“Man is a creation of desire, not a creation of need.”

“So, like a forgotten fire, a childhood can always flare up again within us.”

“The subconscious is ceaselessly murmuring, and it is by listening to these murmurs that one hears the truth.”

“The repose of sleep refreshes only the body. It rarely sets the soul at rest. The repose of the night does not belong to us. It is not the possession of our being. Sleep opens within us an inn for phantoms. In the morning we must sweep out the shadows.”

“There is no original truth, only original error.”

“Ideas are refined and multiplied in the commerce of minds. In their splendor, images effect a very simple communion of souls.”