Salvador Dali (Figueras, 1904 – 1989) was an unrepeatable genius. This Spanish painter developed the expression of surrealism like no one else in his various pictorial and sculptural works.
Based on the world of dreams and the unconscious, Dalí was an eccentric who encompassed all imaginable artistic facets: painting, sculpture, cinema, writing, photography… His personal style is still remembered for being one of the most versatile and notable artists of the world. twentieth century.
In today’s article we wanted to delve deeper into the figure and thoughts of this master, which is why we wanted to compile the 78 best phrases by Salvador Dalí about life, painting, art and love. A great review of the personality of this self-proclaimed megalomaniac.
Without further ado, here are his best reflections.
1. I am doing things that inspire me with deep emotion and I am trying to paint honestly.
A few statements about your artistic approach.
2. Happy is he who causes a scandal.
His irreverence was reflected in each of his public appearances.
3. Eroticism, hallucinogenic drugs, nuclear science, Gaudí’s gothic architecture, my love for gold… there is a common denominator in all of this: God is present in everything. The same magic is at the heart of all things, and all paths lead to the same revelation: we are the children of God, and the entire universe tends toward the perfection of humanity.
About his religious faith.
4. Don’t worry about being modern. Unfortunately it is the one thing that, no matter what you do, cannot be avoided.
An ironic sentence about the desire of some to follow fashion.
5. Painting is an infinitely tiny part of my personality.
Megalomaniac and narcissistic like few others, he always had a great outlet for all the journalists’ questions.
6. Picasso is a painter, like me; Picasso is Spanish, like me; Picasso is a communist, I am not.
Dalí was rather right-wing and conservative.
7. The true painter must be able to have, with the most unusual things, the most unusual ideas.
Creativity to the power of art. Without limits or restrictions.
8. Everything upsets me, but nothing changes me.
Unperturbed despite everything.
9. For me, love must be ugly, appearance must be divine and death must be beautiful.
An aesthetic consideration for each of these facets of life.
10. I’ll be brief, I’m done.
Ironic phrase.
11. I don’t understand why when I order grilled lobster at a restaurant they never serve me a cooked phone.
In reference to one of his works.
12. The secret of my influence has always been that it was kept secret.
Nobody knows him yet.
13. It is not necessary for the audience to know if I am joking or if I am serious, just as it is not necessary for me to know.
Creativity and verbiage as allies.
14. The only difference between me and a crazy person is that I am not crazy.
He only pretended it his entire life.
15. Knowing how to look is a way of inventing.
Another perspective can generate art.
16. At the age of six I wanted to be a cook. At seven he wanted to be Napoleon. And my ambition has been growing steadily since then.
He managed to be better known, almost, than the French emperor.
17. The thermometer of success is simply the envy of the dissatisfied.
The higher you are, the more they will criticize you.
18. A true artist is not one who is inspired, but one who inspires others.
Setting a trend is always an achievement.
19. I don’t take drugs. I am a drug.
His paintings, certainly, caused a lysergic state.
20. Freedom of any kind is the worst for creativity.
Disconcerting phrase from the Catalan genius.
21. What matters is sowing confusion, not eliminating it.
The more abstract, the more cause for confusion.
22. Geniuses must never die, the progress of humanity depends on us.
One of those phrases from Salvador Dalí in which he places artists in a central role.
23. I am able to project myself in my small internal cinema. I free myself through a secret exit from the attempts to besiege my own soul.
Creative phrase from the great Dalí.
24. Surrealism served as a demonstration that total sterility and attempts at automation have gone too far and have led to a totalitarian system.
Few artists can give such a broad meaning to their work.
25. Every time I lose a bit of sperm I am totally convinced that I have wasted it. I always feel guilty afterwards… Since I’m not that helpless to begin with.
Hilarious and mysterious statement.
26. Murder is closer to heaven, because after becoming “memories of our conscience,” we pray, heaven opens, and the angels say: “Good morning!”
Famous poetic quote.
27. To be interesting, one has to provoke.
If you don’t provoke anything, don’t even try.
28. Those who do not want to imitate anything, produce nothing.
Paying attention to others is the key to getting the ball rolling.
29. There is only one difference between a crazy person and me. The madman thinks he is sane. I know I’m crazy.
About his deteriorating sanity.
30. I will live forever. Geniuses don’t die.
The impact on art history was, finally, greater than he himself predicted.
31. Just as I am surprised that a bank clerk never eats a check, I am also surprised that no painter before me ever thought of painting a soft watch.
32. People love mystery, and that’s why they love my paintings.
Simply plagued with great intellectual interest.
33. When the creations of a genius collide with the mind of a layman, and produce an empty sound, there is no doubt that he is in error.
34. It will always be you and me.
To his muse, Gala.
35. Drawing is the honesty of art.
A beautiful conception of painting.
36. And now the Watson and Crick announcement about DNA. This is for me the real proof of the existence of God.
For Dalí, the biological perfection of DNA could not mean anything other than the existence of a supreme being.
37. Genius has to overcome madness and madness above genius.
An ambivalence necessary to create.
38. I believe that life should be a continuous party.
It is only life if it is worth living.
39. I’m not strange. I’m just not normal.
An eccentric like few others.
40. There are some days when I think I’m going to die from an overdose of satisfaction.
Drunk with happiness, Dalí had fun with his bizarre life.
41. One day it will have to be officially admitted that what we have baptized as ‘reality’ is an illusion even greater than the world of dreams.
A philosophical note from the great Dalí.
42. Don’t be afraid of perfection, you will never reach it.
It is an ideal that cannot be sustained.
43. I believe that the time is near when by an active and paranoid method of thinking, it is possible to systematize the confusion and contribute to the total discredit of the world of reality.
Great artistic phrase to reflect on.
44. You have to systematically create confusion, this is how creativity is released. Everything that is contradictory creates life.
In incoherence lies magic, desire.
45. Surrealism is destructive, but it only destroys what it considers to be chains that limit our vision.
Opinion of the man who is probably the main representative of this artistic trend.
46. Give me two hours a day of activity, and I will follow the other twenty-two in dreams.
His greatest inspiration, the world of dreams.
47. Every morning when I wake up, I experience a supreme pleasure again: that of being Salvador Dalí.
A sign of his egocentrism.
48. Intelligence without ambition is a bird without wings.
If you don’t have aspirational goals, your intelligence is of little use.
49. The pleasure of the flesh can only be satisfied if a particular dimension is created, a kind of stereoscopic phenomenon, an imaginary hologram as real as reality is.
An artistic way of referring to sex.
50. A great wine requires a madman to make the vine grow, a wise man to watch over it, a lucid poet to do it, and a lover to drink it.
All praise to the world of wine.
51. Without me there is no art.
One of his most narcissistic statements.
52. I need all these sudden images that appear to me from my past and that form the fabric of what my entire life is.
He built his reality based on flashes.
53. Today, the taste for defects is such that only imperfections and especially ugliness seem great. When a Venus looks like a toad, contemporary pseudo-aesthetes exclaim: she is strong, she is human!
About the strange fashions of the moment.
54. Where is the real? All appearance is fallacious, the visible surface is deceptive. I look at my hand. They are nerves, muscles, bones. Let’s dig deeper: it’s the molecules and the acids.
A detailed vision of the planes of reality.
55. I am surrealism.
At least, he was one of its greatest representatives.
56. It is obvious when my enemies, my friends and the general public pretend not to understand the meaning of the images that arise and that I transcribe in my paintings.
Almost all of Dalí’s symbols were inspired by the dream world.
57. I think I am a better writer than a painter, and on this I agreed with my father. The important thing about my writing is not the style, nor the syntax, nor the discursive resources. The important thing about my writing is simply what I say, and the day will come when that will be accepted.
His literary content was never as recognized as his paintings, anyway.
58. Since the French Revolution, a vicious and cretinous tendency has developed to consider a genius as a human being equal in every way to others.
What do geniuses have in common?
59. I categorically refuse to consider surrealism to be another literary artistic group. I believe that they were able to free man from the tyranny of the “practical and rational” world.
About the relevance of this artistic movement.
60. The difference between false memories and true ones is the same as for jewelry: the one that seems most real, the most brilliant, is always false.
Paradox that Elizabeth Loftus could explain.
61. The true painter is the one who is capable of painting extraordinary scenes in the middle of an empty desert. The true painter is the one who is able to patiently paint a pear surrounded by the tumults of history.
About the capacity for abstraction.
62. One might think that through ecstasy we enter a world far from reality and dreams. The disgusting becomes desirable, the affection becomes cruelty, the ugly becomes beautiful, etc.
About the curious effects of this drug called ecstasy.
63. The difference between false memories and true ones is the same as for jewelry: the one that seems most real, the most brilliant, is always false.
Easily observable.
64. Take me, I am the drug; Take me, I am the hallucinogen.
In reference to himself.
65. The connoisseur does not drink wine, but knows its secrets.
One of Salvador Dalí’s most famous and remembered phrases.
66. Life is too short to go unnoticed.
If you don’t leave a mark, perhaps you are not giving life the importance it deserves.
67. Without madness there is no art.
Without further ado: a genius must have a unique look.
68. I want to perceive and understand the hidden powers and the laws of things, in order to have them in my power.
Know to understand, understand to control.
69. The desire to survive and the fear of death are artistic feelings.
This is how the great Dalí defined it.
70. It is good taste and only good taste that has the power to sterilize and is always the first obstacle to any creative functioning.
Elegance and its benefits.
71. Wars have never hurt anyone, except the people who die.
Paradox to reflect on.
72. Democratic societies are not suitable for the publication of thunderous revelations like the ones I am in the habit of making.
Puritanism spreads when people only want to hear the obvious.
73. Drugs consume but so does life.
A way to downplay the effects of drugs.
74. The connoisseur does not drink wine, but knows its secrets.
Know to observe. Dalí’s philosophy of life.
75. Life is short, but not brief.
Paradox to think about.
76. Very little of what could happen happens.
In fact, what happens is just one option among infinite ones.
77. I believe that the sweetest freedom for a man on earth is to be able to live, if he likes, without having the need to work.
Leisure as a supreme good to which we must aspire.
78. There comes a time in every person’s life when they realize that they adore me.
Another phrase of narcissism with a large dose of humor.
79. The worst thing for creativity is freedom.
Some of his phrases and statements had provocation as their main objective.
80. Paul Cézanne is the least skilled painter, the most catastrophic, the one who has plunged modern art into rubbish.
Throughout his career he had a special interest in making derogatory comments towards other famous painters.
81. Long live the King, Long live Spain, Long live Catalonia.
These were his last televised words, in 1989.
82. My best ideas come through my dreams.
Surrealism is a pictorial genre that delves into the thoughts, dreams and most hidden contents of the human unconscious.
83. I spent 8 years with a psychiatrist to find out if I am crazy or not; And after 8 years he declared “Dalí has the best organized brain I have ever seen.”
His possible madness was always a topic of discussion in the mainstream media.
84. Picasso is a destructive, heterogeneous and anarchist genius.
Being the two great painting geniuses of the time, the press always tried to antagonize each other, with the help of some provocative statements like this one.
85. After me, Picasso is the greatest genius.
Even so, he never hesitated to show the admiration he felt for Pablo Picasso.
86. The greatest Dalinian activity consists of the act of sleeping.
Dalí’s surrealism was based on capturing the artist’s own dreams on canvas.
87. I believe that today the best painter is Dalí.
Modesty was never his specialty and in many of his interviews he demonstrated it.
88. The decisive moment at which my madness probably began can be located exactly a month and a half before my birth.
Dalí constantly contradicted himself in the many interviews he gave, and in them he always tried to launch some scandalous headline.
89. I clearly remember many images of my intrauterine experience.
Many of his statements in the press, although false, were always interesting.
90. My job consists of the meticulous execution of my dreams.
Dreams were always a source of inspiration for his pictorial work.
