Dreams and Imagination

My Oberon! what visions have I seen! Methought I was enamor’d of an ass.

Swift as a shadow, short as any dream, Brief as the lightning in the collied night, That, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and earth, And ere a man hath power to say, “Behold!” The jaws of darkness do devour it up: So quick bright things come to confusion.

Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind, And therefore is wing’d Cupid painted blind. 9

Sits as one new-risen from a dream.

O, 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.

Somewhere, what with all these clouds, and all this air, There must be a rare name, somewhere… How do you like “Cloud-Cuckoo-Land”? 3

Haven’t you sometimes seen a cloud that looked like a centaur? Or a leopard perhaps? Or a wolf? Or a bull? 2

A poet ought not to pick nature’s pocket: let him borrow, and so borrow as to repay by the very act of borrowing. Examine nature accurately, but write from recollection, and trust more to your imagination than to your memory.

All men whilst they are awake are in one common world: but each of them, when he is asleep, is in a world of his own.

Whatever deceives men seems to produce a magical enchantment.

How can you prove whether at this moment we are sleeping, and all our thoughts are a dream; or whether we are awake, and talking to one another in the waking state?

Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything.

If you do not expect the unexpected you will not find it, for it is not to be reached by search or trail.

Hope is a waking dream.

Don't part with your illusions. When they are gone, you may still exist, but you have ceased to live.

Now, isn't imagination a precious thing? It peoples the earth with all manner of wonders .

The air up there in the clouds is very pure and fine, bracing and delicious. And why shouldn't it be?--it is the same the angels breathe.

The difference between a Miracle and a Fact is exactly the difference between a mermaid and a seal.

Don't wake up a woman in love. Let her dream, so that she does not weep when she returns to her bitter reality

When I'm playful I use the meridians of longitude and parallels of latitude for a seine, and drag the Atlantic Ocean for whales. I scratch my head with the lightning and purr myself to sleep with the thunder.

There comes a time in every rightly constructed boy's life when he has a raging desire to go somewhere and dig for hidden treasure.

Optimist: day dreamer more elegantly spelled.

You can't depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.

Books are for people who wish they were somewhere else.