5 Gaston Bachelard Quotes on Language

Gaston Bachelard quotes on language

7. Words ... are little houses, each with its cellar and garret. Common sense lives on the ground floor, always ready to engage in 'foreign commerce' on the same level as the others, as the passers-by, who are never dreamers. To go upstairs in the word house is to withdraw step by step; while to go down to the cellar is to dream, it is losing oneself in the distant corridors of an obscure etymology, looking for treasures that cannot be found in words. To mount and descend in the words themselves-this is a poet's life. To mount too high or descend too low is allowed in the case of poets, who bring earth and sky together.

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

12. I am a dreamer of words, of written words. I think I am reading; a word stops me. I leave the page. The syllables of the word begin to move around. Stressed accents begin to invert. The word abandons its meaning like an overload which is too heavy and prevents dreaming. Then words take on other meanings as if they had the right to be young. And the words wander away, looking in the nooks and crannies of vocabulary for new company, bad company.

18. The words of the world want to make sentences.

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