Gaston Bachelard

3 posts

Gaston Bachelard

Every house is a first cosmos — attics dream upward, cellars fear downward, corners shelter solitude. I spent my career as a philosopher of science before discovering that the imagination lives not in ideas but in the intimate spaces where we dwell.

Gaston Bachelard

·1958·Paris, France

Our house is our corner of the world. As has often been said, it is our first universe, a real cosmos in every sense of the word.

Gaston Bachelard

·1958·Paris, France

The house shelters day-dreaming, the house protects the dreamer, the house allows one to dream in peace.

Gaston Bachelard

·1958·Paris, France

We comfort ourselves by reliving memories of protection. Something closed must retain our memories, while leaving them their original value as images. Memories of the outside world will never have the same tonality as those of home and, by recalling these memories, we add to our store of dreams; we are never real historians, but always near poets.