English

Political satire (1740): "Spain by Folly, Castles builds, and places them in Air."

Verb

build castles in the air

1. (idiomatic) To imagine visionary projects or schemes; to daydream; to have an idle fancy, a pipe dream or any plan, desire, or idea that is unlikely to be realized.
   • Rita Rudner, US comedian:

     Neurotics build castles in the air, psychotics live in them. My mother cleans them.

   • Sir John Vanbrugh, English architect and dramatist:

     You may build castles in the air, and fume, and fret, and grow thin and lean, and pale and ugly, if you please. But I tell you, no man worth having is true to his wife, or can be true to his wife, or ever was, or will be so.

   • David Frost, English journalist, comedian and writer:

     Labor and you build castles in the air. Vote Conservative and you can live in them.

   • 1854 August 9, Henry David Thoreau, Walden, ch. 18:

     If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.

Translations

See also

• castle in the air