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
The characteristic of scientific progress is our knowing that we did not know. – Gaston Bachelard
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. – Gaston Bachelard
Literary imagination is an aesthetic object offered by a writer to a lover of books. – Gaston Bachelard
An idea must not be condemned for being a little shy and incoherent; all new ideas are shy when introduced first among our old ones. We should have patience and see whether the incoherency is likely to wear off or to wear on, in which latter case the sooner we get rid of them the better. – Samuel Butler