Andre Breton Quotes

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.

Nothing retains less of desire in art, in science, than this will to industry, booty, and possession.

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.

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.

There is nothing with which it is so dangerous to take liberties as liberty itself.

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.

Leave everything. Leave Dada. Leave your wife. Leave your mistress. Leave your hopes and fears. Leave your children in the woods. Leave the substance for the shadow. Leave your easy life, leave what you are given for the future. Set off on the roads.

Tout porte à croire qu'il existe un certain point de l'esprit d'où la vie et le mort, le réel et l'imaginaire, le passé et le futur, le communicable et l'incommunicable, le haut et le bas cessent d'être perçus contradictoirement.

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.

To speak of God, to think of God, is in every respect to show what one is made of. I have always wagered against God and I regard the little that I have won in this world as simply the outcome of this bet. However paltry may have been the stake (my life) I am conscious of having won to the full. Everything that is doddering, squint-eyed, vile, polluted and grotesque is summoned up for me in that one word: God!