Salvador Dali Quotes & Sayings

Surrealism is not a movement. It is a latent state of mind perceivable through the powers of dream and nightmare. — Salvador Dali

Instead of stubbornly attempting to use surrealism for purposes of subversion, it is necessary to try to make of surrealism something as solid, complete and classic as the works of museums. — Salvador Dali

[My art is] capable of liberating man from the tyranny of the 'practical, rational world.' — Salvador Dali

It is good taste, and good taste alone, that possesses the power to sterilize and is always the first handicap to any creative functioning. — Salvador Dali

The world of the cinema and of painting are very different; precisely, the possibilities of photography and the cinema reside in that unlimited fantasy which is born of things themselves ... a piece of sugar can become on the screen larger than an infinite perspective of gigantic buildings. — Salvador Dali

I think that the sweetest freedom for a man on earth consists in being able to live, if he likes, without having the need to work. — Salvador Dali

We must always remember that the Chinese revolution was not a peasant's revolution, but one of the extreme Right. — Salvador Dali

Photographic fantasy: more agile and faster in discoveries than murky subconscious processes! — Salvador Dali

The first man to compare the cheeks of a young woman to a rose was obviously a poet; the first to repeat it was possibly an idiot. — Salvador Dali

Physiological expenditure is a superficial way of self-expression. People who incline toward physical love accomplish nothing at all. — Salvador Dali

All of my knowledge, of both science and religion, I incorporate into the classical tradition of my painting. — Salvador Dali

It is either easy or impossible. — Salvador Dali

The problem with the youth of today' is that one is no longer part of it. — Salvador Dali

Geniuses must never die, the progress of mankind depends on us — Salvador Dali

The thermometer of success is merely the jealousy of the malcontents. — Salvador Dali

I dedicate this novel to Gala, who was constantly by my side while I was writing it, who was the good fairy of my equilibrium, who banished the salamanders of my doubts and strengthened the lions of certainties ... — Salvador Dali

An elegant woman is a woman who despises you and has no hair under her arms. — Salvador Dali

I am the first to be surprised and often terrified by the images that I see appear on my canvas. — Salvador Dali

Right now I'm the greatest. I don't say this through vanity. It's just that the rest are so bad. — Salvador Dali

I will be sof brief, I have already finished. — Salvador Dali

Someone like myself, who claimed to be a real madman, living and organized with a Pythagorean precision ... — Salvador Dali

I shall be so brief that I have already finished — Salvador Dali

If you understand a painting beforehand, you might as well not paint it. — Salvador Dali

I'm going to live forever. Geniuses don't die. — Salvador Dali

I was never capable of being an average pupil. I would either seem refractory to any teaching and give the impression of being completely dumb or I would fling myself on my work with a frenzy, a patience, and a willingness to learn that astonished everybody. But to awaken my zeal, it was necessary to offer me something I liked. Once my appetite had been whetted, I became ravenously hungry. — Salvador Dali

Drawing is the honesty of the art. There is no possibility of cheating: It is either good or bad. — Salvador Dali

God is just another artist, like me. — Salvador Dali

Those who do not want to imitate anything, produce nothing. — Salvador Dali

The terrifying and edible beauty of Art Nouveau architecture. — Salvador Dali

I never took drugs, because I am drugs — Salvador Dali

Let the labyrinth of wrinkles be furrowed in my brow with the red-hot iron of my own life, let my hair whiten and my step become vacillating, on condition that I can save the intelligence of my soul - let my unformed childhood soul, as it ages, assume the rational and esthetic forms of an architecture, let me learn just everything that others cannot teach me, what only life would be capable of marking deeply in my skin! — Salvador Dali

Drawing is the honesty of the art. — Salvador Dali

Don't bother about being modern. Unfortunately it is the one thing that, whatever you do, you cannot avoid. — Salvador Dali

I believe that the moment is near when
by a procedure of active paranoiac thought, it will be possible to systematize confusion and contribute to the total discrediting of the world of reality. — Salvador Dali

I do not understand why, when I ask for grilled lobster in a restaurant, I'm never served a cooked telephone. — Salvador Dali

The reason some portraits don't look true to life is that some people make no effort to resemble their pictures. — Salvador Dali

Repulsion is the sentry that guards the gate to all that we most desire. — Salvador Dali

Begin by learning to draw and paint like the old masters. After that, you can do as you like; everyone will respect you. — Salvador Dali

Everyone should eat hashish, but only once. — Salvador Dali

I tried sex once with a woman and it was Gala. It was overated. I tried sex once with a man and that man was the famous juggler Frederico Garcia Lorca. It was very painful. — Salvador Dali

Each morning when I awake, I experience again a supreme pleasure - that of being Salvador Dali. — Salvador Dali

It is not necessary for the public to know whether I am joking or whether I am serious, just as it is not necessary for me to know it myself. — Salvador Dali

Since man's highest mission on earth is to spiritualize everything, it is his excrement in particular that needs it most. — Salvador Dali

I do not take drugs. I am drugs. — Salvador Dali

The two greatest strokes of luck that can happen to a painter are (1) to be Spanish, (2) to be called Dali — Salvador Dali

I tried sex once with a woman and that woman was Gala. It was overrated. I tried sex once with a man and that man was the famous juggler Federico Garcia Lorca [the Spanish Surrealist poet]. It was very painful. — Salvador Dali

Young people need plenty of difficulties to achieve something ... If you receive a little money for this, a little money for that, everything becomes mediocre, and collapses ignominiously. — Salvador Dali

Democratic societies are unfit for the publication of such thunderous revelations as I am in the habit of making. — Salvador Dali

What is important is to spread confusion, not eliminate it. — Salvador Dali

The famous soft watches are nothing else than the tender, extravagant, solitary, paranoic-critical camembert oftime and space. — Salvador Dali

I do not paint a portrait to look like the subject, rather does the person grow to look like his portrait. — Salvador Dali

One day it will have to be officially admitted that what we have christened reality is an even greater illusion than the world of dreams. — Salvador Dali

And now the announcement of Watson and Crick about DNA. This is for me the real proof of the existence of God. — Salvador Dali

The one thing the world will never have enough of is the outrageous. — Salvador Dali

A true artist is not one who is inspired, but one who inspires others. — Salvador Dali

Picasso is a painter, so am I; Picasso is Spanish, so am I; Picasso is a communist, neither am I. — Salvador Dali

Picasso is a communist. Neither am I. — Salvador Dali

Liking money like I like it, is nothing less than mysticism. Money is a glory. — Salvador Dali

My mother's death supervened, and this was the greatest blow I had experienced in my life. I worshipped her ... I could not resign myself to the loss of a being on whom I counted to make invisible the unavoidable blemishes of my soul. — Salvador Dali

Surrealism is destructive, but it destroys only what it considers to be shackles limiting our vision. — Salvador Dali

So little of what could happen does happen. — Salvador Dali

At the age of six I wanted to be a cook. At seven I wanted to be Napoleon. And my ambition has been growing steadily ever since. — Salvador Dali

God invented man, and man invented the metric system. — Salvador Dali

The true painter must be able, with the most usual things, to have the most unusual ideas. — Salvador Dali

Everything alters me, but nothing changes me. — Salvador Dali

Give me two hours a day of activity, and I'll take the other twenty-two in dreams. — Salvador Dali

The secret of my influence has always been that it remained secret. — Salvador Dali

Sometimes I spit on my mother's portrait for pleasure. — Salvador Dali

I don't take drugs: I am drugs. — Salvador Dali

We are all hungry and thirsty for concrete images. Abstract art will have been good for one thing: to restore its exact virginity to figurative art. — Salvador Dali

If you refuse to study anatomy, the arts of drawing and perspective, the mathematics of aesthetics, and the science of color, let me tell you that this is more a sign of laziness than of genius. — Salvador Dali

Paranoiac-critical activity makes the world of delirium pass onto the plane of reality ... — Salvador Dali

Whatever happens, my audience mustn't know whether I am spoofing or being serious; and likewise I mustn't know either. I am in a constant interrogation; when does the deep and philosophically valid Dali begin, and where does the looney and preposterous Dali end? — Salvador Dali

Photographic data ... is still and ESSENTIALLY THE SAFEST POETIC MEDIUM and the most agile process for catching the most delicate osmoses which exist between reality and surreality. The mere fact of photographic transposition means a total invention: the capture of a secret reality. — Salvador Dali

Life is too short to remain unnoticed — Salvador Dali

Democratic governments are not suited to the publication of the thunderous revelations I am in the habit of making. The unpublished parts will appear later ... when Europe will have restored its traditional monarchies. — Salvador Dali

The connoisseur does not drink wine but tastes its secrets — Salvador Dali

Without hesitation, I place Freud among the heroes. He dispossessed the Jewish people of the greatest and most influential of all heroes-Moses. — Salvador Dali

People love mystery, and that is why they love my paintings. — Salvador Dali

You have to systematically create confusion, it sets creativity free. Everything that is contradictory creates life — Salvador Dali

There are some days when I think I'm going to die from an overdose of satisfaction. — Salvador Dali

Intelligence without ambition is a bird without winds. — Salvador Dali

Forever will be you and me. — Salvador Dali

I want to perceive and understand the hidden powers and laws of things, in order to have them in my power. — Salvador Dali

You know the worst thing is freedom. Freedom of any kind is the worst for creativity. You know, Dali spent two months in jail in Spain, and these two months were the most enjoyable and happy in my life. Before my jail period, I was always nervous, anxious. I didn't know if I should make a drawing, or perhaps make a poem, or go to the movies or the theatre, or catch a girl, or play with the boys. The people put me in jail, and my life became divine. Tremendous! — Salvador Dali

Painting is an infinitely minute part of my personality. — Salvador Dali

It is mostly with your blood, Gala that I paint my pictures — Salvador Dali

Eroticism, hallucinogenic drugs, nuclear science, Gaudi's Gothic architecture, my love of gold - there is a common denominator in all of it: God is present in everything. The same magic is at the heart of all things, and all roads lead to the same revelation: we are children of God, and the entire universe tends towards the perfection of mankind. — Salvador Dali

Who knows how to taste wine never drinks wine again, but tastes secrets instead — Salvador Dali

Mistakes are almost always of a sacred nature. Never try to correct them. On the contrary: rationalize them, understand them thoroughly. After that, it will be possible for you to sublimate them. — Salvador Dali

I do not believe in my death. — Salvador Dali

What is a television apparatus to man, who has only to shut his eyes to see the most inaccessible regions of the seen and the never seen, who has only to imagine in order to pierce through walls and cause all the planetary Baghdads of his dreams to rise from the dust. — Salvador Dali

I am not strange. I am just not normal. — Salvador Dali

Let my enemies devour each other — Salvador Dali

Beauty should be edible, or not at all. — Salvador Dali

In order to acquire a growing and lasting respect in society, it is a good thing, if you possess great talent, to give, early in your youth, a very hard kick to the right shin of the society that you love. After that, be a snob. — Salvador Dali

Since I don't smoke, I decided to grow a mustache - it is better for the health.
However, I always carried a jewel-studded cigarette case in which, instead of tobacco, were carefully placed several mustaches, Adolphe Menjou style. I offered them politely to my friends: "Mustache? Mustache? Mustache?"
Nobody dared to touch them. This was my test regarding the sacred aspect of mustaches. — Salvador Dali

Take me, I am the drug; take me, I am hallucinogenic — Salvador Dali

The sole difference between myself and a madman is the fact that I am not mad. — Salvador Dali

When the creations of a genius collide with the mind of a layman, and produce an empty sound, there is little doubt as to which is at fault. — Salvador Dali