One must always maintain one's connection to the past and yet ceaselessly pull away from it. To remain in touch with the past requires a love of memory. To remain in touch with the past requires a constant imaginative effort.
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- We must stay connected to history while actively interpreting it anew.
- In plain terms
- Remember the past but keep imagining it differently.
- What can you take from it?
- Balance respect for history with fresh interpretation.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- How do we honor the past without being stuck in it?
- Why is memory important?
Another view
Constant reimagining can distort historical facts.
More from Gaston Bachelard
Literary imagination is an aesthetic object offered by a writer to a lover of books.
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