The philosophy of poetry must acknowledge that the poetic act has no past, at least no recent past, in which its preparation and appearance could be followed. Gaston Bachelard More Quotes by Gaston Bachelard More Quotes From Gaston Bachelard One must always maintain one's connection to the past and yet ceaselessly pull away from it. Gaston Bachelard moving-on moving-forward wise A house that has been experienced is not an inert box. Inhabited space transcends geometrical space. Gaston Bachelard boxes space house Every corner in a house, every angle in a room, every inch of secluded space in which we like to hide, or withdraw into ourselves, is a symbol of solitude for the imagination; that is to say, it is the germ of a room, or of a house. Gaston Bachelard space imagination house The great function of poetry is to give back to us the situations of our dreams. Gaston Bachelard poetry dream giving To disappear into deep water or to disappear toward a far horizon, to become part of depth of infinity, such is the destiny of man that finds its image in the destiny of water. Gaston Bachelard deep-water destiny men Imagination is a tree. It has the integrative virtues of a tree. It is root and boughs. It lives between earth and sky. It lives in the earth and the wind. The imagined tree imperceptibly becomes a cosmological tree, the tree which epitomises a universe, which makes a universe. Gaston Bachelard roots sky wind The cleverer I am at miniaturizing the world, the better I possess it. Gaston Bachelard world There are reveries so deep, reveries which help us descend so deeply within ourselves that they rid us of our history. They liberate us from our name. These solitudes of today return us to the original solitudes. Gaston Bachelard solitude self names What is the source of our first suffering? It lies in the fact that we hesitated to speak... It was born in the moment when we accumulated silent things within us. Gaston Bachelard suffering integrity lying 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 events life children 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. Gaston Bachelard simple names memories We comfort ourselves by reliving memories of protection. Something closed must retain our memories, while leaving them their original value as images. Memories of the outside world will never have the same tonality as those of home and, by recalling these memories, we add to our store of dreams; we are never real historians, but always near poets, and our emotion is perhaps nothing but an expression of a poetry that was lost. Gaston Bachelard real dream memories All knowledge is in response to a question. If there were no question, there would be no scientific knowledge. Nothing proceeds from itself. Gaston Bachelard scientific-knowledge response would-be The blank page gives us the right to dream. Gaston Bachelard pages dream giving Our house is our corner of the world. Gaston Bachelard corners house world When the image is new, the world is new. Gaston Bachelard design world Words are clamor-filled shells. There's many a story in the miniature of a single word! Gaston Bachelard shells clamor stories In our view any awareness is an increment to consciousness, an added light, a reinforcement of psychic coherence. Its swiftness or instantaneity can hide this growth from us. But there is a growth of being in every instance of awareness. Consciousness is in itself an act, the human act. Gaston Bachelard psychics light views The house protects the dreamer, the house allows one to dream in peace Gaston Bachelard owning-a-home dream house Why should the actions of the imagination not be as real as those of perception? Gaston Bachelard perception real imagination
