Looking for the best and inspirational Salvador Dalí quotes?
Considered one of the most influential artists of the 20th century, Salvador Dali was known for his surrealist artwork and imaginative dreamscapes.
On May 11, 1904, he was born in Spain, where he studied art and worked as an architect for a few years before becoming a painter. He was a founder member of the surrealist movement in 1928. His work is often characterized by the juxtaposition of the mundane and something seemingly impossible or grotesque.
His work is known for its range of interpretations with layers that can be esoteric and humorous to otherworldly. This is what makes him an artist that many people can connect with on a variety of levels.
If you want to be an extraordinary person, check out his inspiring quotes that will surely change your mind.
61 Most Inspiring Salvador Dalí Quotes
“Don’t fear perfection, you will never reach it.”
“The difference between false memories and true ones is the same as for jewels: it is always the false ones that look the most real, the most brilliant.”
“It is good taste, and good taste alone, that possesses the power to sterilize and is always the first handicap to any creative functioning.”
“Geniuses must never die, the progress of mankind depends on us”
“The thermometer of success is merely the jealousy of the malcontents.”
“Those who do not want to imitate anything, produce nothing.”
“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.”
“Each morning when I awake, I experience again a supreme pleasure – that of being Salvador Dali.”
“Have no fear of perfection – you’ll never reach it.”
“What’s the secret to success? Giving the right honey to the right fly at the right time and place.”
“If you understand your painting beforehand, you might as well not paint it.”
“Begin by learning to draw and paint like the old masters. After that, you can do as you like; everyone will respect you.”
“Whoever wants to engage people’s interest must provoke them.”
“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.”
“No masterpiece was ever created by a lazy person.”
“Give me two hours a day of activity, and I’ll take the other twenty-two in dreams.”
“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.”
“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.”
“Don’t bother about being modern. Unfortunately, it is the one thing that, whatever you do, you cannot avoid.”
“The only difference between me and a madman is that I’m not mad.”
“I want to perceive and understand the hidden powers and laws of things, in order to have them in my power.”
“The daily life of a genius, his sleep, his digestion, he ecstasies, his nails, his colds, his blood, his life and death are essentially different from the rest of mankind.”
“I seated ugliness on my knee, and almost immediately grew tired of it.”
“Surrealism is destructive, but it destroys only what it considers to be shackles limiting our vision.”
“I am not strange. I am just not normal.”
“What is important is to spread confusion, not eliminate it.”
“Repulsion is the sentry that guards the gate to all that we most desire.”
“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.”
“The best parties are those which you talk about but never go to.”
“Every morning upon awakening, I experience a supreme pleasure: that of being Salvador Dali, and I ask myself, wonderstruck, what prodigious thing will he do today, this Salvador Dali.”
“Intelligence without ambition is a bird without wings.”
“There are some days when I think I’m going to die from an overdose of satisfaction.”
“It’s better to have loved and lost.”
“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.”
“The sole difference between myself and a madman is the fact that I am not mad!”
“You have to systematically create confusion, it sets creativity free. Everything that is contradictory creates life”
“Surrealism is myself.”
“Knowing how to look is a way of inventing.”
“There are some days when I think I’m going to die from an overdose of satisfaction.”
“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.”
“A true artist is not one who is inspired, but one who inspires others.”
“Life is too short to remain unnoticed.”
“Happy is he who causes a scandal”
“I absolutely love life.”
“He who knows how to taste does not drink wine but savors secrets.”
“Drawing is the honesty of the art. There is no possibility of cheating: It is either good or bad.”
“I do not take drugs. I am drugs.”
“There is only one difference between a madman and me. The madman thinks he is sane. I know I am mad.”
“Surrealism is not a movement. It is a latent state of mind perceivable through the powers of dream and nightmare.”
“It is either easy or impossible.”
“I’m much more interested in speaking, or being near people who think the opposite of the things I think, than with people who think the same things that I think.”
“The secret of my influence has always been that it remained secret.”
“It is not me who is the clown, but this monstrously cynical and so unconsciously naive society, which plays the game of seriousness in order better to hide its madness.”
“The one thing the world will never have enough of is the outrageous.”
“Beauty should be edible, or not at all.”
“I do not understand why, when I ask for grilled lobster in a restaurant, I’m never served a cooked telephone.”
“The reason some portraits don’t look true to life is that some people make no effort to resemble their pictures.”
“So little of what could happen does happen.”
“Have no fear of perfection—you’ll never reach it.”
“Progressive art can assist people to learn not only about the objective forces at work in the society in which they live, but also about the intensely social character of their interior lives. Ultimately, it can propel people toward social emancipation.”
“Everything alters me, but nothing changes me.”
