Gaston Bachelard Quotes

Intelligence, that sublimation of the sensibility, that organ of the need to know, is sterilized sensibility.

The truth of things is the chief nutriment of superior intellects.

All men by nature desire knowledge.

Whoever does not love knowledge, then there is no good in him.

One of the things that distinguishes man from the other animals is that he wants to know things, wants to find out what reality is like, simply for the sake of knowing. When that desire is completely quenched in anyone, I think he has become something less than human.

To learn is a natural pleasure, not confined to philosophers, but common to all men.

To cultivate the intellect is therefore a religious duty; and when this truth is fairly recognized by men, the religion which teaches that the intellect should be distrusted and that it should be subservient to faith, will inevitably fall.

Where there is much desire to learn, there of necessity will be much arguing, much writing, many opinions; for opinion in good men is but knowledge in the making.

As with stomachs, we should pity minds that do not eat.

There cannot be mental atrophy in any person who continues to observe, to remember what he observes, and to seek answers for his unceasing hows and whys about things.

the compulsion to read and write - and it seems to me it should be, even must be, a compulsion - is a bit of mental wiring the species has selected, over time, in order, as the life span increases, to keep us interested in ourselves.

If we encounter a man of rare intellect, we should ask him what books he reads.

Teaching might even be the greatest of the arts since the medium is the human mind and spirit.

Man cannot survive except by gaining knowledge, and reason is his only means to gain it.

In the pursuit of knowledge, follow it wherever it is to be found; like fern, it is the produce of all climates, and like coin, its circulation is not restricted to any particular class.

The history of the human race is a continual struggle from darkness into light. It is, therefore, to no purpose to discuss the use of knowledge; man wants to know, and when he ceases to do so, is no longer a man.

The birth of the mind is the death of the senses

We know next to nothing about virtually everything. It is not necessary to know the origin of the universe; it is necessary to want to know. Civilization depends not on any particular knowledge, but on the disposition to crave knowledge

First the education of the senses, then the education of the intellect.

Once you have learned to ask questions - relevant and appropriate and substantial questions - you have learned how to learn and no one can keep you from learning whatever you want or need to know.

Read more. Read. Read. Read. Deeply, widely, read. Learn all kinds of subjects. The smarter you are as an actor, the better an actor you'll be.

Knowledge is praised and desired by multitudes whom her charms could never rouse from the couch of sloth; whom the faintest invitation of pleasure draws away from their studies; to whom any other method of wearing the day is more eligible than the use of books, and who are more easily engaged by any conversation than such as may rectify their notions or enlarge their comprehension.

Education would be a divine thing, if it did nothing more than help us to think and love great thoughts instead of little thoughts.

To be wise is to be eternally curious.

The gift of knowledge is the highest gift in the world.