Even a minor event in the life of a child is an event of that child's world and thus a world event. Gaston Bachelard More Quotes by Gaston Bachelard More Quotes From Gaston Bachelard Ideas are invented only as correctives to the past. Through repeated rectification of this kind one may hope to disengage an idea that is valid. Gaston Bachelard hope past ideas An excess of childhood is the germ of a poem. Gaston Bachelard germs excess childhood How is it possible not to feel that there is communication between our solitude as a dreamer and the solitudes of childhood? And it is no accident that, in a tranquil reverie, we often follow the slope which returns us to our childhood solitudes. Gaston Bachelard childhood communication dream A man is a man to the extent that he is a superman. A man should be defined by the sum of those tendencies which impel him to surpass the human condition. Gaston Bachelard growth integrity men There are children who will leave a game to go and be bored in a corner of the garret. How often have I wished for the attic of my boredom when the complications of life made me lose the very germ of freedom! Gaston Bachelard games happiness children I am alone so I dream of the being who has cured my solitude, who would be cured by solitudes. With its life, it brought me the idealizations of life, all the idealizations which give life a double, which lead life toward it summits, which make the dreamer too live by splitting. Gaston Bachelard solitude dream giving To verify images kills them, and it is always more enriching to imagine than to experience. Gaston Bachelard verify enriching imagine 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. Gaston Bachelard childhood dream memories It is quite evident that a barrier must be cleared in order to escape the psychologists and enter into a realm which is not "auto-observant", where we ourselves no longer divide ourselves into observer and observed. Then the dreamer is completely dissolved in his reverie. His reverie is his silent life. It is that silent peace which the poet wants to convey to us. Gaston Bachelard dream peace order Here we are at the very core of the thesis we wish to defend in the present essay: reverie is under the sign of the anima. When the reverie is truly profound, the being who comes to dream within us is our anima. For a philosopher who takes his inspiration from phenomenology, a reverie on reverie is very exactly a phenomenology of the anima, and it is by coordinating reveries on reverie that he hopes to constitute a "Poetics of reverie". In other words, the poetics of reverie is a poetics of the anima. Gaston Bachelard inspiration dream profound We comfort ourselves by reliving memories of protection Gaston Bachelard protection comfort memories Thanks to his complex convictions, made strong with the forces of animus and anima, the alchemist believes he is seizing the soul of the world, participating in the soul of the world. Thus, from the world to the man, alchemy is a problem of souls. Gaston Bachelard strong men believe It is through the intentionality of poetic imagination that the poet's soul discovers the opening of consciousness common to all true poetry. Gaston Bachelard poetry soul imagination Nothing is forgotten in the processes of idealization. Reveries of idealization develop, not by letting oneself be taken in by memories, but by constantly dreaming the values of a being whom one would love. And that is the way a great dreamer dreams his double. His magnified double sustains him. Gaston Bachelard taken dream memories This word "description" may be disconcerting when used to refer to what is generally called a translation. But when one wishes to render a verbal creation (as opposed to a didactic statement) from one language to another, he is confronted with two equally unsatisfactory choices. He may, according to his talents, elaborate a similar, but never identical creation, or he may describe that creation as completely as possible in his own language. Gaston Bachelard choices wish two What action could bodies and substances have if they were not named in a further increase of dignity where common nouns become proper nouns? Gaston Bachelard nouns substance body The reverie would not last if it were not nourished by the images of the sweetness of living, by the illusions of happiness. Gaston Bachelard illusion lasts happiness A pretext-not a cause-is sufficient for us to enter the "solitary situation", the situation of the dreaming solitude. In this solitude, memories arrange themselves in tableaux. Decor takes precedence over drama. Sad memories take on at least the peace of melancholy. Gaston Bachelard dream drama memories Irony gives us, at little expense, the impression that we are experienced psychologists. Gaston Bachelard irony littles giving In living off all the reflecting light furnished by poets, the I which dreams the reverie reveals itself not as poet but as poetizing I. Gaston Bachelard poet light dream
