Salvador Dali Quotes

You know the worst thing is freedom. Freedom of any kind is the worst for creativity.
Salvador Dali

Intelligence without ambition is a bird without wings.
Salvador Dali




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.
Salvador Dali

Democratic societies are unfit for the publication of such thunderous revelations as I am in the habit of making.
Salvador Dali

Don't bother about being modern. Unfortunately it is the one thing that, whatever you do, you cannot avoid.
Salvador Dali

Drawing is the honesty of the art. There is no possibility of cheating. It is either good or bad.
Salvador Dali

Each morning when I awake, I experience again a supreme pleasure - that of being Salvador Dali.
Salvador Dali

Have no fear of perfection - you'll never reach it.
Salvador Dali

I do not paint a portrait to look like the subject, rather does the person grow to look like his portrait.
Salvador Dali

I don't do drugs. I am drugs.
Salvador Dali

I have Dalinian thought: the one thing the world will never have enough of is the outrageous.
Salvador Dali

I seated ugliness on my knee, and almost immediately grew tired of it.
Salvador Dali

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.
Salvador Dali

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.
Salvador Dali

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.
Salvador Dali

Surrealism is destructive, but it destroys only what it considers to be shackles limiting our vision.
Salvador Dali

Take me, I am the drug; take me, I am hallucinogenic.
Salvador Dali

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.
Salvador Dali

The problem with the youth of today' is that one is no longer part of it.
Salvador Dali

Drawing is the honesty of the art. There is no possibility of cheating. It is either good or bad.
Salvador Dali

When the creations of a genius collide with the mind of a layman, and produce an empty sound, there is little doubt as to which is at fault.
Salvador Dali

You have to systematically create confusion, it sets creativity free. Everything that is contradictory creates life.
Salvador Dali

People love mystery, and that is why they love my paintings.
Salvador Dali

When I paint, the sea roars. The others splash about in the bath.
Salvador Dali

One day it will have to be officially admitted that what we have christened reality is an even greater illusion than the world of dreams.
Salvador Dali

The desire to survive and the fear of death are artistic sentiments.
Salvador Dali

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.
Salvador Dali

Have no fear of perfection, you'll never reach it.
Salvador Dali


Those who do not want to imitate anything, produce nothing.
Salvador Dali

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.
Salvador Dali

The only difference between me and a madman is that I'm not mad.
Salvador Dali

The thermometer of success is merely the jealousy of the malcontents.
Salvador Dali

There is only one difference between a madman and me. The madman thinks he is sane. I know I am mad.
Salvador Dali

Those who do not want to imitate anything, produce nothing.
Salvador Dali

Wars have never hurt anybody except the people who die.
Salvador Dali

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.
Salvador Dali

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. Salvador Dali

It is good taste, and good taste alone, that possesses the power to sterilize and is always the first handicap to any creative functioning. Salvador Dali Let my enemies devour each other. Salvador Dali Liking money like I like it, is nothing less than mysticism. Money is a glory.
Salvador Dali

Painting is an infinitely minute part of my personality. Salvador Dali

There are some days when I think I'm going to die from an overdose of satisfaction. Salvador Dali