Gaston Bachelard

Man is an imagining being. ”

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. ”

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

Reverie is not a mind vacuum. It is rather the gift of an hour which knows the plenitude of the soul. ”

Even a minor event in the life of a child is an event of that child's world and thus a world event. ”

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

The great function of poetry is to give back to us the situations of our dreams. ”

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

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. ”

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