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.
Gaston BachelardRead
Here is Menard's own intimate forest: 'Now I am traversed by bridle paths, under the seal of sun and shade...I live in great density...Shelter lures me. I slump down into the thick foliage...In the forest, I am my entire self. Everything is possible in my heart just as it is in the hiding places in ravines. Thickly wooded distance separates me from moral codes and cities.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects on the deep connection between a person and nature, emphasizing a sense of freedom and authenticity found within the forest.
In this quote, Bachelard describes a profound relationship with the forest, portraying it as a sanctuary that fosters self-discovery and liberation from societal constraints. The imagery of 'bridle paths', 'thick foliage', and 'hiding places' illustrates how nature provides an escape where one can reconnect with their true self, free from the moral codes of civilization. The forest symbolizes a place of possibility, nurturing the heart and spirit in an intimate and personal way.
Themes
NatureSelf-DiscoveryFreedomAuthenticityForest
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about the importance of nature in our lives, one might say, 'As Bachelard expressed, in the forest, we can truly find ourselves away from the chaos of cities.'
More from Gaston Bachelard
All quotes →Of course, any simplification runs the risk of mutilating reality; but it helps us establish perspectives.
Gaston BachelardRead
Nobody knows that in reading we are re-living our temptations to be a poet. All readers who have a certain passion for reading, nurture and repress, through reading, the desire to become a writer.
Gaston BachelardRead
Ideas are refined and multiplied in the commerce of minds. In their splendor, images effect a very simple communion of souls.
Gaston BachelardRead
In order to dream so far, is it enough to read? Isn't it necessary to write? Write as in our schoolboy past, in those days when, as Bonnoure says, the letters wrote themselves one by one, either in their gibbosity or else in their pretentious elegance? In those days, spelling was a drama, our drama of culture at work in the interior of a word.
Gaston BachelardRead
How is it possible not to feel that there is communication between our solitude as a dreamer and the solitudes of childhood? And it is no accident that, in a tranquil reverie, we often follow the slope which returns us to our childhood solitudes.
Gaston BachelardRead
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