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
imagination definitions artistic
Artistic imagination must remain free. It is by definition free from any fidelity to circumstances, especially to the intoxicating circumstances of history.
horse men imagination
The man who cannot visualize a horse galloping on a tomato is an idiot.
mean justice imagination
The mere word freedom is the only one that still excites me. I deem it capable of indefinitely sustaining the old human fanaticism. It doubtless satisfies my only legitimate aspiration. Among all the many misfortunes to which we are heir, it is only fair to admit that we are allowed the greatest degree of freedom of thought. It is up to us not to misuse it. 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.
dali hesitates man might vice
Dali is like a man who hesitates between talent and genius, or, as one might once have said, between vice and virtue.
contained god grotesque single
Everything that is doddering, squint-eyed, infamous, sullying, and grotesque is contained for me in this single word: God
arts chief wise
Of all the arts in which the wise excel, nature's chief masterpiece is writing well.
soul limbo
I am the soul in limbo.
secret oneself
What one hides is worth neither more nor less than what one finds. And what one hides from oneself is worth neither more nor less than what one allows others to find.
paradise flow tides
How small these rescued tides appear! Earthly delights flow in torrents. Each object offers paradise.
running art ifs
A work of art has value only if tremors of the future run through it...
future humanity events
In the world we live in everything militates in favor of things that have not yet happened, of things that will never happen again.
fairy-stories green adults
There are fairy stories to be written for adults. Stories that are still in a green state.
beach stars eye
What’s the good of these great fragile fits of enthusiasm, these jaded jumps of joys? We know nothing anymore, but the dead stars; we gaze at their faces; and we gasp with pleasure. Our mouths are dry as the lost beaches, and our eyes turn aimlessly and without hope. Now all that remain are these cafés where we meet to drink these cool drinks, these diluted spirits, and the tables are stickier than the pavements where our shadows of the day before have fallen.
dream believe reality
I believe in the future resolution of these two states, dream and reality, which are seemingly so contradictory, into a kind of absolute reality, a surreality, if one may so speak.