quotations about dreams & dreaming
All men who have achieved great things have been great dreamers.
ORISON SWETT MARDEN
The Miracle of Right Thought
Dream different dreams while on the same bed.
CHINESE PROVERB
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
If you do not fear God, then fear your dreams, because they're how He talks to you.
TIM LEBBON
Face
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"
Dreams are pegs for Superstition and Romance to hang their cloaks upon.
ELIZA COOK
Diamond Dust
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 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
Wise men have interpreted dreams, and the gods have laughed.
H. P. LOVECRAFT
"Hypnos"
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
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
In what we may term "prescientific days" people were in no uncertainty about the interpretation of dreams. When they were recalled after awakening they were regarded as either the friendly or hostile manifestation of some higher powers, demoniacal and Divine. With the rise of scientific thought the whole of this expressive mythology was transferred to psychology; to-day there is but a small minority among educated persons who doubt that the dream is the dreamer's own psychical act.
SIGMUND FREUD
"Dreams Have a Meaning", Dream Psychology
It feels in dreams
That everything is there for you
The city breathes and pulses
It's for you electron blue
R.E.M.
"Sing for the Submarine"
The dream deceives; it leads to confusions; it is illusory. But it is not erroneous.
MICHEL FOUCAULT
Madness & Civilization
The longer that dreams remained mere dreams, the more difficult it was to mold them into reality.
BRIAN HERBERT & KEVIN J. ANDERSON
Dune: House Atreides
I dream, therefore I exist.
AUGUST STRINDBERG
A Madman's Defense
In dreams we stand in this great democracy of the possible and there we are right pilgrims indeed. There we go forth to meet what we shall meet.
CORMAC MCCARTHY
Cities of the Plain
There were dreams once upon a time, dreams now all but forgotten. On sad days I dust them off and fondle them nostalgically, with a patronizing wonder at the naivete of the youth who dreamed them.
GLEN COOK
The White Rose
Cinderella believed in dreams, all right, but she also believed in doing something about them. When Prince Charming didn't come along, she went over to the palace and got him.
WALT DISNEY
attributed, Not Another Dating Book