Quote

I believe in the pure Surrealist joy of the man who, forewarned that all others before him have failed, refused to admit defeat, sets off from watever point he chooses, along any other pat save a reasonable one, and arrives wherever he can.

Andre Breton

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Andre Breton
Age: 70 †
Born: 1896
Born: February 18
Died: 1966
Died: September 28
Art Theorist
Drawer
Essayist
Novelist
Photographer
Poet
Writer
Chicago
Illinois
Andre Breton
D'André Breton
Andre Breto
René Dobrant
Believe
Wherever
Surrealist
Men
Defeat
Arrives
Save
Refused
Along
Chooses
Pure
Sets
Joy
Failed
Point
Admit
Others
Reasonable
Forewarned

More quotes by Andre Breton

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No rules exist, and examples are simply life-savers answering the appeals of rules making vain attempts to exist.
Andre Breton
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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.
Andre Breton
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It is living and ceasing to live that are imaginary solutions. Existence is elsewhere.
Andre Breton
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Beauty will be convulsive or will not be at all.
Andre Breton
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It is hard not to see into the future, faced with today's blind architecture - a thousand times more stupid and more revolting than that of other ages. How bored we shall be inside!
Andre Breton
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Surrealism is based on the belief in the omnipotence of dreams, in the undirected play of thought.
Andre Breton
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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.
Andre Breton
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The pure playfulness of certain wholly whimsical portions of (Charles) Cros’s work should not obscure the fact that at the center of some of his most beautiful poems a revolver is leveled straight at us.
Andre Breton
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It is the whole modern concept of love which should be re-examined, such as is commonly but transparently expressed in phrases like 'love at first sight' and 'honeymoon'. All this shoddy terminology is on top of that tainted with the most reactionary irony.
Andre Breton
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The clouds were disappearing rapidly, leaving the stars to die. The night dried up.
Andre Breton
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The simplest act of surrealism is to walk out into the street, gun in hand, and shoot at random.
Andre Breton
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Life’s greatest gift is the freedom it leaves you to step out of it whenever you choose.
Andre Breton
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I could spend my whole life prying loose the secrets of the insane. These people are honest to a fault, and their naivety has no peer but my own.
Andre Breton
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The lamentable expression: 'But it was only a dream, the increasing use of which - among others in the domain of the cinema - has contributed not a little to encourage such hypocrisy, has for a long while ceased to merit discussion.
Andre Breton
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The art of Frida Kahlo is a ribbon around a bomb.
Andre Breton
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To see, to hear, means nothing. To recognize (or not to recognize) means everything. Between what I do recognize and what I do not recognize there stands myself. And what I do not recognize I shall continue not to recognize.
Andre Breton
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The mind which plunges into Surrealism, relives with burning excitement the best part of childhood.
Andre Breton
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When will the arbitrary be granted the place it deserves in the formation of works and ideas?
Andre Breton
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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.
Andre Breton
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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.
Andre Breton