Quotations From GASTON BACHELARD

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• 1.

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

  Gaston Bachelard (1884-1962), French scientist, philosopher, literary theorist. "A Retrospective Glance at the Lifework of a Master of Books," Fragments of a Poetics of Fire (1988, trans. 1990).
  
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• 2.

  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 (1884-1962), French scientist, philosopher, literary theorist. "A Retrospective Glance at the Lifework of a Master of Books," Fragments of a Poetics of Fire (1988, trans. 1990).
  
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• 3.

  A special kind of beauty exists which is born in language, of language, and for language.

  Gaston Bachelard (1884-1962), French scientist, philosopher, literary theorist. "A Retrospective Glance at the Lifework of a Master of Books," Fragments of a Poetics of Fire (1988, trans. 1990).
  
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• 4.

  There is no original truth, only original error.

  Gaston Bachelard (1884-1962), French scientist, philosopher, literary theorist. "A Retrospective Glance at the Lifework of a Master of Books," Fragments of a Poetics of Fire (1988).
  
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• 5.

  Literary imagination is an aesthetic object offered by a writer to a lover of books.

  Gaston Bachelard (1884-1962), French scientist, philosopher, literary theorist. "A Retrospective Glance at the Lifework of a Master of Books," Fragments of a Poetics of Fire (1988, trans. 1990).
  
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• 6.

  Two half philosophers will probably never a whole metaphysician make.

  Gaston Bachelard (1884-1962), French scientist, philosopher, literary theorist. "A Retrospective Glance at the Lifework of a Master of Books," Fragments of a Poetics of Fire (1988, trans. 1990).
• 7.

  To feel most beautifully alive means to be reading something beautiful, ready always to apprehend in the flow of language the sudden flash of poetry.

  Gaston Bachelard (1884-1962), French scientist, philosopher, literary theorist. "A Retrospective Glance at the Lifework of a Master of Books," Fragments of a Poetics of Fire (1988, trans. 1990).
  
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• 8.

  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 (1884-1962), French scientist, philosopher, literary theorist. "Introduction," sect. 2, The Poetics of Reverie (1960, trans. 1969).
  
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• 9.

  Man is an imagining being.

  Gaston Bachelard (1884-1962), French scientist, philosopher, literary theorist. The Poetics of Reverie, ch. 2, sct. 10 (1960, trans. 1969).
• 10.

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

  Gaston Bachelard (1884-1962), French scientist, philosopher, literary theorist. The Psychoanalysis of Fire, ch. 2, "Fire and Reverie," (1938).