quotations about dreams & dreaming
The dream is the small hidden door in the deepest and most intimate sanctum of the soul, which opens to that primeval cosmic night that was soul long before there was conscious ego and will be soul far beyond what a conscious ego could ever reach.
CARL JUNG
The Meaning of Psychology for Modern Man
Well now what's the use in dreamin'
You got better things to do
Dreams never did work for me anyway
Even when they did come true
BOB DYLAN
"I Feel a Change Comin' On"
People who are most afraid of their dreams convince themselves they don't dream at all.
JOHN STEINBECK
The Winter of Our Discontent
The interpretation of dreams is the royal road to a knowledge of the unconscious activities of the mind.
SIGMUND FREUD
The Interpretation of Dreams
My dreams are a stupid refuge, like an umbrella against a thunderbolt.
FERNANDO PESSOA
The Book of Disquiet
The pillow is a silent sibyl--despise not its oracles.
ELIZA COOK
Diamond Dust
They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.
EDGAR ALLAN POE
"Eleonora"
Dreams are symbolic in order that they cannot be understood; in order that the wish, which is the source of the dream, may remain unknown.
CARL JUNG
Psychology of the Unconscious
Dream different dreams while on the same bed.
CHINESE PROVERB
The dream is a series of images, which are apparently contradictory and nonsensical, but arise in reality from psychologic material which yields a clear meaning.
CARL JUNG
Psychology of the Unconscious
No man lives long when his dreams are dead.
GENE WOLFE
The Claw of the Conciliator
Dreams that are realized become an inspiration for new endeavor. It is in the power to make the dream good that we find the hope of this world.
ORISON SWETT MARDEN
He Can Who Thinks He Can
The dreams of golden glory in the future will not come true unless, high of heart and strong of hand, by our own mighty deeds we make them come true.
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
speech at the University of Berlin, May 12, 1910
For, after all, you do grow up, you do outgrow your ideals, which turn to dust and ashes, which are shattered into fragments; and if you have no other life, you just have to build one up out of these fragments. And all the time your soul is craving and longing for something else. And in vain does the dreamer rummage about in his old dreams, raking them over as though they were a heap of cinders, looking in these cinders for some spark, however tiny, to fan it into a flame so as to warm his chilled blood by it and revive in it all that he held so dear before, all that touched his heart, that made his blood course through his veins, that drew tears from his eyes, and that so splendidly deceived him.
FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY
White Nights
I have observed dreams and visions very carefully, and am now certain that the imagination has some way of lighting on the truth that the reason has not, and that its commandments, delivered when the body is still and the reason silent, are the most binding we can ever know.
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS
Ideas of Good and Evil
The world would not have advanced very far had it not been for the contributions of its dreamers. It would never have gained its steamboat, nor its Atlantic cable, nor its wireless telegraph, nor its electric light. It would never have acquired any really great enterprise. For a little enterprise may be rustled and worried into being: but a really great program or movement or business must be dreamed.
BRUCE FAIRCHILD BARTON
More Power to You
Dreams fade with morning light,
Never a morn for thee,
Dreamer of dreams, goodnight.
JOYCE KILMER
"The Poet's Epitaph"
Because waking I often observe the absurdity of dreams, but never dream of the absurdities of my waking thoughts, I am well satisfied that being awake, I know I dream not; though when I dream, I think myself awake.
THOMAS HOBBES
Leviathan
Not everything to which we are able to compare an object or an occurrence occurs in the dream as its symbol; on the other hand, the dream does not symbolize anything we may choose, but only specific elements of the dream thought. There are limitations on both sides.
SIGMUND FREUD
"Symbolism in the Dream", A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis
Those dreams that on the silent night intrude, and with false flitting shapes our minds delude ... are mere productions of the brain. And fools consult interpreters in vain.
JONATHAN SWIFT
On Dreams