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
If there is any realm where distinction is especially difficult, it is the realm of childhood memories, the realm of beloved images harbored in memory since childhood. These memories which live by the image and in virtue of the image become, at certain times of our lives and particularly during the quiet age, the origin and matter of a complex reverie: the memory dreams, and reverie remembers.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Childhood memories are often complex and intertwined, shaping our reflections throughout life.
Gaston Bachelard emphasizes the intricate nature of childhood memories and how they are more than mere recollections; they are vivid images that influence our thoughts and emotions. As we reach different stages in life, particularly in quieter moments, these cherished memories can spark deep reflection and reverie, allowing us to connect with our past on a profound level.
Themes
ChildhoodMemoriesReverieReflectionImage
In practice
Example use cases
During a speech on the importance of childhood, one might reference this quote to highlight how memories shape our identity.
More from Gaston Bachelard
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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.
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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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