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 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
The great function of poetry is to give back to us the situations of our dreams. – Gaston Bachelard
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. – Gaston Bachelard
The consequences of things are not always proportionate to the apparent magnitude of those events that have produced them. Thus the American Revolution, from which little was expected, produced much; but the French Revolution, from which much was expected, produced little. – Charles Caleb Colton