Andre Breton
Andre Breton
André Bretonwas a French writer, poet, anarchist and anti-fascist. He is known best as the founder of Surrealism. His writings include the first Surrealist Manifestoof 1924, in which he defined surrealism as "pure psychic automatism"...
NationalityFrench
ProfessionNon-Fiction Author
Date of Birth19 February 1896
CountryFrance
Andre Breton quotes about
contained god grotesque single
Everything that is doddering, squint-eyed, infamous, sullying, and grotesque is contained for me in this single word: God
dream memories men
I have always been amazed at the way an ordinary observer lends so much more credence and attaches so much more importance to waking events than to those occurring in dreams... Man... is above all the plaything of his memory.
dream omnipotence play
Surrealism is based on the belief in the omnipotence of dreams, in the undirected play of thought.
making-love
Words make love with one another.
heart poetry understanding
At the outset, it is only liking, not understanding, that matters. Gaps in understanding ... are not only important, they are perhaps even welcome, like clearings in the woods, the better to allow the heart's rays to stream out without obstacle. The unlit shadows should remain obscure, which is the very condition of enchantment.
photography writing blow
The invention of photography has dealt a mortal blow to the old modes of expression, in painting as well as in poetry, where automatic writing, which appeared at the end of the nineteenth century, is a true photography of thought. Since a blind instrument now assured artists of achieving the aim they had set themselves up to that time, they now aspired, not without recklessness, to break with the imitation of appearances.
expectations confusion challenges
The approval of the public is to be avoided like the plague. It is absolutely essential to keep the public from entering if one wishes to avoid confusion. I must add that the public must be kept panting in expectation at the gate by a system of challenges and provocations.
hands crowds pistols
The simplest Surrealist act consists of dashing down into the street, pistol in hand, and firing blindly, as fast as you can pull the trigger, into the crowd.
dream should objects
Objects seen in dreams should be manufactured and put on sale.
beauty
Beauty will be convulsive or will not be at all.
loving-you secret firsts
There is By my leaning over the precipice Of your presence and your absence in hopeless fusion My finding the secret Of loving you Always for the first time
looks firsts impossible
It is impossible for me to envisage a picture as being other than a window, and why my first concern is then to know what it looks out on.
fate finding-yourself trying
Perhaps I am doomed to retrace my steps under the illusion that I am exploring, doomed to try and learn what I should simply recognize, learning a mere fraction of what I have forgotten.
betrayal mean justice
To reduce the imagination to a state of slavery --even though it would mean the elimination of what is commonly called happiness --is to betray all sense of absolute justice within oneself. Imagination alone offers me some intimation of what can be.