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Andre Breton Biography

André Breton (French: [ɑ̃dʁe bʁətɔ̃]; 18 February 1896 – 28 September 1966) was a French writer, poet, and anti-fascist. He is known best as the founder of Surrealism. His writings include the first Surrealist Manifesto (Manifeste du surréalisme) of 1924, in which he defined surrealism as "pure psychic automatism".

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Andre Breton Quotes

It is impossible for me to envisage a picture as being other than a window, and why my first concern is then to know what it looks out on.

Envisage, Firsts, Impossible, Know, Looks, Window

I love you on the surface of seas Red like the egg when it is green

Eggs, Green, Love You, Red, Sea, Seas

Over and above the various prejudices I acknowledge, the affinities I feel, the attractions I succumb to, the events which occur to me and to me alone- over and above a sum of movements I am conscious of making, of emotions I alone experience- I strive, in relation to other men, to discover the nature, if not the necessity, of my difference from them. Is it not precisely to the degree I become conscious of this difference that I shall recognize what I alone have been put on this earth to do, what unique message I alone may bear, so that I alone can answer for its fate?

Degree, Fate, Men, Nature, Prejudices, Unique

What one hides is worth neither more nor less than what one finds. And what one hides from oneself is worth neither more nor less than what one allows others to find.

Allows, Finds, Oneself, Secret, Worth

Past and future monopolize the poet’s sensory and intellectual faculties, detached from the immediate spectacle. These two philtres become utterly clear the moment one stops being hypnotized by the cloudy precipitate constituted by the world of today.

Detached, Immediate, Intellectual, Moment, Past, Two

The mere word freedom is the only one that still excites me. I deem it capable of indefinitely sustaining the old human fanaticism. It doubtless satisfies my only legitimate aspiration. Among all the many misfortunes to which we are heir, it is only fair to admit that we are allowed the greatest degree of freedom of thought. It is up to us not to misuse it. 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.

Heir, Imagination, Justice, Legitimate, Mean, Mere

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.

Arrives, Believe, Joy, Men, Surrealist

The invention of photography has dealt a mortal blow to the old modes of expression, in painting as well as in poetry, where automatic writing, which appeared at the end of the nineteenth century, is a true photography of thought. Since a blind instrument now assured artists of achieving the aim they had set themselves up to that time, they now aspired, not without recklessness, to break with the imitation of appearances.

Artist, Imitation, Photography, Set, Time, Writing

What’s the good of these great fragile fits of enthusiasm, these jaded jumps of joys? We know nothing anymore, but the dead stars; we gaze at their faces; and we gasp with pleasure. Our mouths are dry as the lost beaches, and our eyes turn aimlessly and without hope. Now all that remain are these cafés where we meet to drink these cool drinks, these diluted spirits, and the tables are stickier than the pavements where our shadows of the day before have fallen.

Anymore, Beach, Eye, Stars, Tables, Whats

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.

Betrayal, Mean, Justice, Alone, Commonly, Reduce

Dada is a state of mind.

Dada, Mind, State, State Of Mind, States

Surrealism is based on the belief in the omnipotence of dreams, in the undirected play of thought.

Based, Belief, Dream, Omnipotence, Play

At the word witch, we imagine the horrible old crones from Macbeth. But the cruel trials witches suffered teach us the opposite. Many perished precisely because they were young and beautiful.

Beautiful, Imagine, Opposites, Trials, Witches, Word

What is admirable about the fantastic is that there is no longer anything fantastic: there is only the real.

Admirable, Fantastic, Longer, Real, Surrealism

How I loathe the servitude people try to hold up to me as being so valuable. I pity the man who is condemned to it, who cannot generally escape it, but it is not the burden of his labor that disposes me in his favor, it is - it can only be - the vigor of his protest against it.

Men, People, Trying, Loathe, Servitude, Generally

Everything tends to make us believe that there exists a certain point of the mind at which life and death, the real and the imagined, past and future, the communicable and the incommunicable, high and low, cease to be perceived as contradictions.

Believe, Certain, Death, Everything, Make, Real

To see, to hear, means nothing. To recognize (or not to recognize) means everything.

Everything, Hear, Mean, Nothing, Recognize, See

Nothing that surrounds us is object, all is subject.

Nothing, Object, Objects, Subject, Subjects, Surrealism

The simplest act of surrealism is to walk out into the street, gun in hand, and shoot at random.

Act, Cynicism, Gun, Hands, Simplest, Walk

Objects seen in dreams should be manufactured and put on sale.

Dream, Manufactured, Objects, Sale, Seen, Should

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