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

Gaston Bachelard Philosophy See all quotes by Gaston Bachelard →

React to this quote

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.”

“Childhood lasts all through life. It returns to animate broad sections of adult life.... Poets will help us to find this living childhood within us, this permanent, durable immobile world.”

Resonant Thoughts

"I think what'll happen in the not-too-distant future is that we'll have humane wars. Each side agrees to use clean bombs. And each side agrees to limit the amount of megatons he uses. In other words, …"

— Don DeLillo

Literature1936

#writing

"What will we do when they start capturing our people?" Klein asked. "They will, you know, if they haven't by now. Things go wrong." Heydrich's fingers drummed some more. He didn't worry about the labo…"

— Harry Turtledove

Literature1949

#humor

"Notwithstanding all the honor which this country has bestowed upon the living and all the reverence that has marked its attitude toward the dead who have served us in a military capacity, we are not a…"

— Calvin Coolidge

Politics1780–1853

#knowledge

"Well, he wrote a book -- well, maybe here I'm being political -- he wrote a book about the tyrants of South America, and then he had several stanzas against the United States. Now he knows that that's…"

— Jorge Luis Borges

Literature1899–1986

#time