Behind the book | treeofdreams

Yes: I am a dreamer. For 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.

- Oscar Wilde

Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life’s coming attractions.

- Albert Einstein

Without leaps of imagination or dreaming, we lose the excitement of possibilities. Dreaming, after all, is a form of planning.

- Gloria Stelnem

There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why… I dream of things that never were, and ask why not?

- Robert F. Kennedy

The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.

- Eleanor Roosevelt

All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them.

- Walt Disney

Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world.

- Harriet Tubman

I’m a dreamer. I have to dream and reach for the stars, and if I miss a star then I grab a handful of clouds.

- Mike Tyson

A man, whilst he is dreaming, believes in his dream; he is undeceived only when he is awakened from his slumber.

- Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi

Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined.

- Henry David Thoreau

The key to realizing a dream is to focus not on success but significance – and then even the small steps and little victories along your path will take on greater meaning.

- Oprah Winfrey

Famous dreamers

If you care to believe the legends and myths, dreams have changed the world one time after another. Here are a few examples:

- The founding fathers, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, attributed the philosophy contained within the Declaration of Independence to their dreams

- Albert Einstein ascribed the theory of relativity to a dream he had as a young boy

- Thomas Edison credited his discovery of electricity to his dreams

- While on a train to London in 1990, J.K. Rowling came up with the concept for Harry Potter. The idea, she says, "simply fell into my head". Pen-less at the time, Rowling spent the remainder of her train-ride dreaming about the story and began to write it down as soon as she arrived home.

- Colonel Harold Dickson made history’s biggest oil discovery (which later became the Kuwait Oil Company) based on guidance illumined in his dream

- Elias Howe sourced his invention of the sewing machine to his dreams

- Dr. Frederick Banting discovered insulin in his dream—and won a Nobel Prize

- Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein was inspired by her dream/nightmare

- A dream led Otto Loewi to a Nobel Prize for his contribution to medicine

- Mendeleyev beheld the complete periodic table in his dream

- The planet Uranus was discovered by William Herschel in a dream

- Stravinsky, Wagner, and Beethoven heard musical compositions, from fragments to entire canons, in their dreams

- Bob Dylan composed music from his dreams

- Paul McCartney praised his dreams for his multi-platinum song, Yesterday

- Jeff Taylor dreamed of his patent for Monster.com

- The movie, Avatar, was dreamed in vivid detail by director, James Cameron

- John Lennon wrote Yesterday, a best-selling song and one of his most iconic solo works, based on a dream he had

- Director Christopher Nolan took the inspiration for his 2010 psychological thriller Inception from his own lucid dreams

- Surrealist painter Salvador Dali has called many of his works "hand-painted dream photographs," and Persistence of Memory, one of his most famous renderings, was inspired by an actual dream.

- The Twilight series was dreamed by stay-at-home-mom, Stephenie Meyer… and the list goes on…