A pretext-not a cause-is sufficient for us to enter the "solitary situation", the situation of the dreaming solitude. In this solitude, memories arrange themselves in tableaux. Decor takes precedence over drama. Sad memories take on at least the peace of melancholy.

Of course, a psychologist would find it more direct to study the inspired poet. He would make concrete studies of inspiration in individual geniuses. But for all that, would he experience the phenomena of inspiration? His human documentation gathered from inspired poets could hardly be related, except from the exterior, in an ideal of objective observations. Comparison of inspired poets would soon make us lose sight of inspiration.

The characteristic of scientific progress is our knowing that we did not know.

Childhood knows unhappiness through men. In solitude, it can relax its aches. When the human world leaves him in peace, the child feels like the son of the cosmos.

Two half philosophers will probably never a whole metaphysician make.

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.

One must live to build one's house, and not build one's house to live in.