"Ideas are invented only as correctives to the past. Through repeated rectifications of this kind one may hope to disengage an idea that is valid."

Gaston Bachelard Philosophy See all quotes by Gaston Bachelard →

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More by Gaston Bachelard

“A word is a bud attempting to become a twig. How can one not dream while writing? It is the pen which dreams. The blank page gives the right to dream.”

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

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

“True poetry is a function of awakening. It awakens us, but it must retain the memory of previous dreams.”

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

“Poetry is one of the destinies of speech.... One would say that the poetic image, in its newness, opens a future to language.”

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— Robert Moog

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