Manifestoes of Surrealism

I believe in the future resolution of these two states, dream and reality, which are seemingly so contradictory, into a kind of absolute reality, a surreality, if one may so speak.

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.

The simplest Surrealist act consists of dashing down the street, pistol in hand, and firing blindly, as fast as you can pull the trigger, into the crowd. Anyone who, at least once in his life, has not dreamed of thus putting an end to the petty system of debasement and cretinization in effect has a well-defined place in that crowd with his belly at barrel-level.

There are fairy stories to be written for adults. Stories that are still in a green state.

This cancer of the mind which consists of thinking all too sadly that certain things ‘are,’ while others, which well might be, ‘are not.

The mind of the dreaming man is fully satisfied with whatever happens to it. The agonizing question of possibility does not arise.

Everything leads us to believe that there exists a spot in the mind from which life and death, the real and the imaginary, the past and the future, the high and the low, the communicable and the incommunicable will cease to appear contradictory.

I have always been amazed at the way an ordinary observer lends so much more credence and attaches so much more importance to waking events than to those occurring in dreams.

Intellectually, true beauty is very difficult to distinguish a priori from the bloom of youth.

As I go on my way I may happen to fall from a precipice or be pursued by stones, but each time, I beg you to believe, it’s only a reality.

Man proposes and dispose. He and he alone can determine whether he is completely master of himself, that is, whether he maintains the body of his desires, daily more formidable, in a state of anarchy.

Let us not lose sight of the fact that the idea of Surrealism aims quite simply at the total recovery of our psychic force by a means which is nothing other than the dizzying descent into ourselves, the systematic illumination of hidden places and the progressive darkening of other places, the perpetual excursion into the midst of forbidden territory, and that there is no real danger of its activities coming to an end so long as man still manages to distinguish an animal from a flame or a stone

I have played along with the music just for a second, and now I don’t know what to think of suicide, for if I want to separate myself from myself the exit is from this side and, I spitefully add, the entry, the reentry is on the other side.

The confidences of the mad, I could pass my whole life inspiring them. They are a scrupulously honest tribe, whose innocence has no peer but my own.

I will be like Nijinksi, who was taken last year to the Russian ballet, and could not comprehend what spectacle he was viewing. I will be alone, quite alone in myself, indifferent to all the world’s ballets.

Nós combatemos sob todas as formas, a indiferença poética, a distração artística, a pesquisa erudita, a especulação pura, e não queremos ter nada em comum com os economizadores de espírito.

The Word is more, and, for the cabalists, it is nothing less, for example, than that in the image of which the human soul is created; we know that it has been traced back to the point of being the initial example of the cause of causes; it is, therefore, as much in what we fear as in what we write, as in what we love

...the blackboard which was to serve for demonstrations was represented by a very elegant young priest who I suppose celebrated the law of falling bodies as a mass is celebrated.

We are the prisoners of the mechanical orgy pursued inside the earth, for we have dug mines, underground galleries through which we sneak in a band beneath the cities that we want to blow up.

Engrave this Quote Psychic automatism in its pure state, by which one proposes to express -- verbally, by means of the written word, or in any other manner -- the actual functioning of thought. Dictated by the thought, in the absence of any control exercised by reason, exempt from any aesthetic or moral concern.

No hay hombros humanos capaces de soportar la omnisciencia, de la que se quiso hacer un atributo de "Dios". En la medida en que el hombre se concebía "su imagen", no se ha hecho más que inculcarle la pretensión a esa omnisciencia. Es indispensable terminar de una sola vez con estas dos chácharas. Nada de lo establecido y decretado por el hombre puede considerarse defmitivo e intangible, y menos aún llegar a convertirse en objeto de un culto si éste impone el renunciamiento en favor de una preexistente voluntad divinizada. Estas reservas no deben, por supuesto, causar perjuicios a las formas lúcidas de dependencia y de estima voluntarias. A este respecto, no habiendo nada ya que me impida dejar vagabundear a mi espíritu sin temor a las acusaciones de misticismo que no dejarán de prodigarme, creo que no sería mala idea comenzar por convencer al hombre de que no es, como presume, el rey de la creación. Esta idea me abre, al menos, algunas valiosas perspectivas en el plano poético, lo que le confiere, quiérase o no, cierta eficacia futura.

There is Nothing but so many superimposed images taken from some stock catalogue, which the author utilises more and more whenever he chooses. He seizes the opportunity to slip me his postcard, he tries to make me agree with him about the cliches.

Menos aún amarse sin oponerse a todo lo que no es amor,

El hombre propone y dispone. Solamente de él depende llegar a pertenecerse por entero, o sea, mantener en estado anárquico las huestes cada vez más temibles de sus deseos. Se lo enseña la poesía, que lleva en sí misma la compensación perfecta de las miserias que soportamos. Puede hasta convertirse en ordenadora, a poco que bajo los efectos de una decepción menos íntima se decida a tomarla por lo trágico.

¿Cuándo habrá lógicos y filósofos durmientes? Quisiera dormir, para poder entregarme a los que duermen, del mismo modo que me entrego a los que me leen, con los ojos bien abiertos; para acabar con el predominio del ritmo consciente de mi pensamiento en este asunto. Tal vez mi sueño de la última noche sea continuación del de la noche anterior, y a su vez sea seguido por el de la próxima noche, con un rigor digno de encomio. Todo es posible, como suele decirse.

Creo solamente que entre mi pensamiento, tal como se desprende de lo que ha podido leerse firmado por mí, y yo mismo, a quien la verdadera naturaleza de mi pensamiento enrola en algo que todavía ignoro, hay un mundo, un mundo irrevocable de fantasmas, de hipótesis que se realizan, de apuestas perdidas y de mentiras, cosas todas que, tras un rápido examen, me disuaden de aportar la más mínima correción a esta obra.

No comprendo por qué ni cómo vivo, cómo es que todavía vivo, y con mayor motivo, qué es lo que yo vivo. Si queda algo de un sistema como el surrealismo, que hago mío y al que me acomodo lentamente, si quedara sólo con qué enterrarme, de todos modos nunca habrá habido con qué hacer de mí lo que yo quise ser, a pesar de la complacencia que tengo para mí mismo. Complacencia relativa, en función de la que se puede tener hacia mi yo (o no-yo, no sé bien). Y, con todo, vivo, y hasta descubrí que amaba la vida.