Dreams

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I can but entreat you to remember it is only by preserving faith in human dreams that we may, after all, perhaps some day make them come true. ~ James Branch Cabell
A poet should leave traces of his passage, not proofs. Traces alone engender dreams. ~ René Char
The center of every man's existence is a dream. ~ G. K. Chesterton

Dreams are the perceived experiences of images, sounds, or other sensations during sleep, or the envisioning of events and potentials during normal consciousness. Many of the events of dreams are impossible or unlikely to occur in physical reality, and are often outside the deliberate control of the dreamer.

Quotes [edit]

If a man could pass through Paradise in a dream, and have a flower presented to him as a pledge that his soul had really been there, and if he found that flower in his hand when he awake — Aye, what then? ~ Coleridge
ALL THIS IS A DREAM. ~ Michael Faraday
I have had a dream, past the wit of man to say what dream it was. ~ Shakespeare
Dreams are the touchstones of our characters. ~ Thoreau
After ten thousand generations there may be a great sage who will be able to explain it, a trivial interval equivalent to the passage from morning to night... ~ Zhuangzi
  • We grow great by dreams. All big men are dreamers. They see things in the soft haze of a spring day or in the red fire of a long winter's evening. Some of us let these great dreams die, but others nourish and protect them; nurse them through bad days till they bring them to the sunshine and light which comes always to those who sincerely hope that their dreams will come true.
  • People say that your dreams are the only things that save ya... Come on baby in our dreams, we can live our misbehaviors
  • Trapped dreams must die.
    • James Branch Cabell, in The Certain Hour (1916), "To Robert Gamble Cabell II: In Dedication of The Certain Hour'"
  • I was born, I think, with the desire to make beautiful books — brave books that would preserve the glories of the Dream untarnished, and would re-create them for battered people, and re-awaken joy and magnanimity.
  • The Dream, as I now know, is not best served by making parodies of it, and it does not greatly matter after all whether a book be an epic or a directory. What really matters is that there is so much faith and love and kindliness which we can share with and provoke in others, and that by cleanly, simple, generous living we approach perfection in the highest and most lovely of all arts. . . . But you, I think, have always comprehended this.
  • With the passage of time, whatever a man had done, whether for good or evil, with the man's bodily organs, left the man's parish unaffected: only a man's thoughts and dreams could outlive him, in any serious sense, and these might survive with perhaps augmenting influence: so that Kennaston had come to think artistic creation in words — since marble and canvas inevitably perished — was the one, possibly, worth-while employment of human life. But here was a crude corporal deed which bluntly destroyed thoughts, and annihilated dreams by wholesale. To Kennaston this seemed the one real tragedy that could be staged on earth....
    • James Branch Cabell, in The Cream of the Jest (1917) "Richard Fentnor Harroby" in Ch. 24 : Deals with Pen Scratches
  • Man alone of animals plays the ape to his dreams.
    • James Branch Cabell, in The Silver Stallion : A Comedy of Redemption (1926), Manuel, in Book Four : Coth at Porutsa, Chapter XXV : Last Obligation upon Manuel
  • People must have both their dreams and their dinners in this world, and when we go out of it we must take what we find. That is all.
    • James Branch Cabell, in The Silver Stallion : A Comedy of Redemption (1926), Niafer, in Book Ten : At Manuel's Tomb, Chapter LXIX : Economics of Jurgen
  • The dreamer dies, but never dies the dream,
    Though Death shall call the whirlwind to his aid,
    Enlist men’s passions, trick their hearts with hate,
    Still shall the Vision live! Say nevermore
    That dreams are fragile things. What else endures
    Of all this broken world save only dreams!
    • Dana Burnet, "Who Dreams Shall Live", in Poems (1915), p. 209, lines 11–16.
  • Alice! a childish story take,
    And with a gentle hand
    Lay it where Childhood's dreams are twined
    In Memory's mystic band    ,
    Like pilgrim's withered wreath of flowers
    Plucked in a far-off land.
  • Un poète doit laisser des traces de son passage, non des preuves. Seules les traces font rêver.
    • A poet should leave traces of his passage, not proofs. Traces alone engender dreams.
      • René Char, as quoted in The French-American Review (1976) by Texas Christian University, p. 132
  • The center of every man's existence is a dream. Death, disease, insanity, are merely material accidents, like a toothache or a twisted ankle. That these brutal forces always besiege and often capture the citadel does not prove that they are the citadel.
  • If a man could pass through Paradise in a dream, and have a flower presented to him as a pledge that his soul had really been there, and if he found that flower in his hand when he awake — Aye, what then?
  • Don't ever let someone tell you, you can't do something. Not even me. You got a dream, you got to protect it. People can't do something themselves, they want to tell you you can't do it. You want something, go get it. Period.
  • Dream after dream ensues;
    And still they dream that they shall still succeed;
    And still are disappointed.
  • ALL THIS IS A DREAM. Still examine it by a few experiments. Nothing is too wonderful to be true, if it be consistent with the laws of nature; and in such things as these experiment is the best test of such consistency.
    • Michael Faraday, in his labratory journal entry #10,040 (19 March 1849); published in The Life and Letters of Faraday (1870) Vol. II, edited by Henry Bence Jones, p. 253. This has sometimes been quoted partially as "Nothing is too wonderful to be true".
  • You have to believe we are magic, nothin' can stand in our way
    You have to believe we are magic, don't let your aim ever stray
    And if all your hopes survive, destiny will arrive
    I'll bring all your dreams alive, for you.
  • Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken winged bird that cannot fly.
    • Langston Hughes, in "Dreams" in the anthology Golden Slippers : An Anthology of Negro Poetry for Young Readers (1941), edited by Arna Bontemps
  • What happens to a dream deferred?

    Does it dry up
    like a raisin in the sun?
    Or fester like a sore —
    And then run?
    Does it stink like rotten meat?
    Or crust and sugar over —
    like a syrupy sweet?

    Maybe it just sags
    like a heavy load.

    Or does it explode?

  • Dreaming is not merely an act of communication; it is also an aesthetic activity, a game of the imagination, a game that is a value in itself.
    • Milan Kundera, in The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1984). as translated by Michael Henry Heim; Part Two: Soul and Body, p. 59
  • All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes, to make it possible. This I did.
  • A dream is a creation of the intelligence, the creator being present but not knowing how it will end.
  • They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.
  • It is the quality and intensity of the dream only which raises men above the biological norm; and it is fidelity to the dream which differentiates the exceptional figure, the man of heroic stature, from the muddling, aimless mediocrities about him. What the dream is, matters not at all — it may be a dream of sainthood, kingship, love, art, asceticism or sensual pleasure — so long as it is fully expressed with all the resources of self.
  • But only in their dreams can men be truly free. 'Twas always thus, and always thus will be.
  • I have had a dream, past the wit of man to say what dream it was.
  • To die, to sleep;
    To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub:
    For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
    When we have shuffled off this mortal coil..."
  • Dreams are the touchstones of our characters.
  • The whole life is a succession of dreams. My ambition is to be a conscious dreamer, that is all.
    • Swami Vivekananda, in a letter from New York to Mary Hale (10 February 1896), in Complete Works, 5.100
  • A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world.
  • I have spread my dreams beneath your feet;
    Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
  • Once upon a time, I, Chuang Chou, dreamt I was a butterfly, fluttering hither and thither, to all intents and purposes a butterfly. I was conscious only of my happiness as a butterfly, unaware that I was Chou. Soon I awaked, and there I was, veritably myself again. Now I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly, dreaming I am a man. Between a man and a butterfly there is necessarily a distinction. The transition is called the transformation of material things.
    • As translated by Lin Yutang; Alternate translations:
      Once Zhuang Zhou dreamed he was a butterfly, a fluttering butterfly. What fun he had, doing as he pleased! He did not know he was Zhou. Suddenly he woke up and found himself to be Zhou. He did not know whether Zhou had dreamed he was a butterfly or a butterfly had dreamed he was Zhou. Between Zhou and the butterfly there must be some distinction. This is what is meant by the transformation of things.
      One night, Zhuangzi dreamed of being a butterfly — a happy butterfly, showing off and doing things as he pleased, unaware of being Zhuangzi. Suddenly he awoke, drowsily, Zhuangzi again. And he could not tell whether it was Zhuangzi who had dreamt the butterfly or the butterfly dreaming Zhuangzi. But there must be some difference between them! This is called 'the transformation of things'.
    • Zhuangzi, in Zhuangzi
  • How do I know that enjoying life is not a delusion? How do I know that in hating death we are not like people who got lost in early childhood and do not know the way home? Lady Li was the child of a border guard in Ai. When first captured by the state of Jin, she wept so much her clothes were soaked. But after she entered the palace, shared the king's bed, and dined on the finest meats, she regretted her tears. How do I know that the dead do not regret their previous longing for life? One who dreams of drinking wine may in the morning weep; one who dreams weeping may in the morning go out to hunt. During our dreams we do not know we are dreaming. We may even dream of interpreting a dream. Only on waking do we know it was a dream. Only after the great awakening will we realize that this is the great dream. And yet fools think they are awake, presuming to know that they are rulers or herdsmen. How dense! You and Confucius are both dreaming, and I who say you are a dream am also a dream. Such is my tale. It will probably be called preposterous, but after ten thousand generations there may be a great sage who will be able to explain it, a trivial interval equivalent to the passage from morning to night.

Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations [edit]

Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 201-04.
  • When to soft Sleep we give ourselves away,
    And in a dream as in a fairy bark
    Drift on and on through the enchanted dark
    To purple daybreak—little thought we pay
    To that sweet bitter world we know by day.
  • Sweet sleep be with us, one and all!
    And if upon its stillness fall
    The visions of a busy brain,
    We'll have our pleasure o'er again,
    To warm the heart, to charm the sight,
    Gay dreams to all! good night, good night.
  • If there were dreams to sell,
    Merry and sad to tell,
    And the crier rung his bell,
    What would you buy?
  • "Come to me, darling; I'm lonely without thee;
    Daytime and nighttime I'm dreaming about thee."
  • Oft morning dreams presage approaching fate,
    For morning dreams, as poets tell, are true.
  • I dreamt that I dwelt in marble halls,
    With vassals and serfs at my side.
  • I had a dream, which was not all a dream.
  • And dreams in their development have breath,
    And tears, and tortures, and the touch of joy;
    They have a weight upon our waking thoughts,
    They take a weight from off our waking toils,
    They do divide our being.
  • A change came o'er the spirit of my dream.
  • The fisher droppeth his net in the stream,
    And a hundred streams are the same as one;
    And the maiden dreameth her love-lit dream;
    And what is it all, when all is done?
    The net of the fisher the burden breaks,
    And always the dreaming the dreamer wakes.
  • Again let us dream where the land lies sunny
    And live, like the bees, on our hearts' old honey,
    Away from the world that slaves for money—
    Come, journey the way with me.
  • Like the dreams,
    Children of night, of indigestion bred.
  • And so, his senses gradually wrapt
    In a half sleep, he dreams of better worlds,
    And dreaming hears thee still, O singing lark;
    That singest like an angel in the clouds.
  • Dreams are but interludes, which fancy makes;
    When monarch reason sleeps, this mimic wakes.
  • In blissful dream, in silent night,
    There came to me, with magic might,
    With magic might, my own sweet love,
    Into my little room above.
  • Fly, dotard, fly!
    With thy wise dreams and fables of the sky.
    • Homer, The Odyssey, Book II, line 207. Pope's translation
  • Some dreams we have are nothing else but dreams,
    Unnatural and full of contradictions;
    Yet others of our most romantic schemes
    Are something more than fictions.
  • And the dream that our mind had sketched in haste
    Shall others continue, but never complete.
    For none upon earth can achieve his scheme;
    The best as the worst are futile here:
    We wake at the self-same point of the dream,—
    All is here begun, and finished elsewhere.
  • Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase!)
    Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace.
  • Your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions.
    • Joel, II. 28
  • There's a long, long trail a-winding
    Into the land of my dreams,
    Where the nightingales are singing
    And a white moon beams;
    There's a long, long night of waiting
    Until my dreams all come true,
    Till the day when I'll be going down that
    Long, long trail with you.
    • Stoddard King, There's a Long, Long Trail. (Popular in the Great War)
  • Ever of thee I'm fondly dreaming,
    Thy gentle voice my spirit can cheer.
  • 'Twas but a dream,—let it pass,—let it vanish like so many others!
    What I thought was a flower is only a weed, and is worthless.
  • Is this is a dream? O, if it be a dream,
    Let me sleep on, and do not wake me yet!
  • Ground not upon dreams, you know they are ever contrary.
  • I believe it to be true that Dreams are the true Interpreters of our Inclinations; but there is Art required to sort and understand them.
  • One of those passing rainbow dreams,
    Half light, half shade, which fancy's beams
    Paint on the fleeting mists that roll,
    In trance or slumber, round the soul!
    • Thomas Moore, Lalla Rookh (1817), Fire Worshippers, Stanza 54
  • Oh! that a dream so sweet, so long enjoy'd,
    Should be so sadly, cruelly destroy'd!
    • Thomas Moore, Lalla Rookh (1817), Veiled Prophet of Khorassan, Stanza 62
  • A thousand creeds and battle cries,
    A thousand warring social schemes,
    A thousand new moralities
    And twenty thousand, thousand dreams.
  • I am weary of planning and toiling
    In the crowded hives of men;
    Heart weary of building and spoiling
    And spoiling and building again;
    And I long for the dear old river
    Where I dreamed my youth away;
    For a dreamer lives forever,
    And a toiler dies in a day.
  • Namque sub Aurora jam dormitante lucerna Somnia quo cerni tempore vera solent.
    • Those dreams are true which we have in the morning, as the lamp begins to flicker.
    • Ovid, Epistles, XIX. Hero Leandro. 195
  • Dreams, which, beneath the hov'ring shades of night,
    Sport with the ever-restless minds of men,
    Descend not from the gods. Each busy brain
    Creates its own.
  • What was your dream?
    It seemed to me that a woman in white raiment, graceful and fair to look upon, came towards me and calling me by name said:
    On the third day, Socrates, thou shall reach the coast of fertile Phthia.
  • That holy dream—that holy dream,
    While all the world were chiding,
    Hath cheered me as a lovely beam
    A lonely spirit guiding.
  • Yet eat in dreams, the custard of the day.
  • Till their own dreams at length deceive 'em
    And oft repeating, they believe 'em.
  • As a dream when one awaketh.
    • Psalms. LXXIII. 20
  • This morn, as sleeping in my bed I lay,
    I dreamt (and morning dreams come true they say).
    • W. B. Rhodes, Bombastes Furioso. Post medium noctean bisus, quum comnia vera. Horace, Satires, Book I. Sat. 10, line 33. Tibullus, Elegy, Book III. 4
  • O Brethren, weep to-day,
    The silent God hath quenched my Torch's ray,
    And the vain dream hath flown.
  • Some must delve when the dawn is nigh;
    Some must toil when the noonday beams;
    But when night comes, and the soft winds sigh,
    Every man is a King of Dreams.
  • I'll dream no more—by manly mind
    Not even in sleep is well resigned.
    My midnight orisons said o'er,
    I'll turn to rest and dream no more.
    • Walter Scott, Lady of the Lake (1810), Canto I, Stanza 35.
  • Thou hast beat me out
    Twelve several times, and I have nightly since
    Dreamt of encounters 'twixt thyself and me.
  • Oh! I have pass'd a miserable night,
    So full of ugly sights, of ghastly dreams,
    That, as I am a Christian faithful man,
    I would not spend another such a night,
    Though 'twere to buy a world of happy days.
  • For never yet one hour in his bed
    Have I enjoyed the golden dew of sleep,
    But have been waked by his timorous dreams.
  • I talk of dreams,
    Which are the children of an idle brain,
    Begot of nothing but vain fantasy,
    Which is as thin of substance as the air
    And more inconstant than the wind.
  • Sometime she driveth o'er a soldier's neck,
    And then dreams he of cutting foreign throats,
    Of breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades,
    Of healths five-fathom deep.
  • If I may trust the flattering truth of sleep,
    My dreams presage some joyful news at hand:
    My bosom's lord sits lightly in his throne;
    And all this day an unaccustom'd spirit
    Lifts me above the ground with cheerful thoughts.
  • We are such stuff
    As dreams are made on, and our little life
    Is rounded with a sleep.
  • Ah, the strange, sweet, lonely delight
    Of the Valleys of Dream.
  • Across the silent stream
    Where the dream-shadows go,
    From the dim blue Hill of Dream
    I have heard the west wind blow.
  • In an ocean of dreams without a sound.
  • Those dreams, that on the silent night intrude,
    And with false flitting shades our minds delude,
    Jove never sends us downward from the skies;
    Nor can they from infernal mansions rise;
    But are all mere productions of the brain,
    And fools consult interpreters in vain.
  • In the world of dreams, I have chosen my part.
    To sleep for a season and hear no word
    Of true love's truth or of light love's art,
    Only the song of a secret bird.
  • The dream
    Dreamed by a happy man, when the dark East,
    Unseen, is brightening to his bridal morn.
  • Seeing, I saw not, hearing not, I heard.
    Tho', if I saw not, yet they told me all
    So often that I spake as having seen.
  • The chambers in the house of dreams
    Are fed with so divine an air,
    That Time's hoar wings grow young therein,
    And they who walk there are most fair.
  • And yet, as angels in some brighter dreams
    Call to the soul when man doth sleep.
    So some strange thoughts transcend our wonted dreams,
    And into glory peep.
  • Hunt half a day for a forgotten dream.

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