Quotes

If you search Salvador Dali + Quotes you will be bombarded with both insightful and surreal words from the mouth of the Spanish Surrealist Master, Salvador Dali. His words have inspired millions of Facebook likes, countless blog post and repost, and endless philosophical discussions. Today Dali’s sayings are almost as popular as his paintings. A Salvador Dali quote is a mix of whimsical insight and brutal truth. Let us un-package some of these Dali quotes.

“At the age of six I wanted to be a cook. At seven I wanted to be Napoleon, and my ambition has been growing ever since.” – Salvador Dali Quote.

This Dali quote exemplifies a distinct characteristic of Dali. Ambition. Dali was ambitious beyond what words could describe. Everything had to be louder, bigger, more surreal, more DALI!! Dali wanted to be the world’s most famous artist. He wanted his legacy to live forever. This quote is a perfect example of Dali’s immense ambition.

“I don’t do drugs. I am a drug.” – Salvador Dali Quote.

In the midst of the counter culture revolution of the sixties Dali looked around and saw everyone on some kind of high. His realization, I only need myself to get high, or to reach other levels of consciousness. By the time the 1960s came around, Dali was already one of the most well known figures in the world, but his brand of surrealism attracted a new audience whose interest in the psychedelic would mesh perfectly with Dali’s art. Dali provided the impetus for his own creativity, his own art, he needed nothing else outside of himself to verify it.

“Each morning I wake and I experience again a supreme pleasure, the pleasure of being Salvador Dali.” – Salvador Dali Quote.

People’s initial reaction to this might think that Dali is self-absorb. I know for a fact that he was self-absorbed, but in a way that we might not have considered. This quote is about pure confidence, confidence in one’s self. Dali had that. There wasn’t a decision he made that he ever doubted, there wasn’t a vision he saw that he believed wasn’t a grand work of art. Dali embraced what he did best, to create art, not just with paint and brushes, but with his life. He understood that life was to believed as a giant art project. Getting up for him, every morning, was like getting to work on a new piece of art, getting up to play. Who wouldn’t love that feeling?

“The only difference between me and a madman is that I’m not mad.” – Salvador Dali Quote.

There is only one difference between our normal self, and a self that has gone completely insane, a moment of madness. Everything else is the same. Dali understood that within us we each have the capacity to reach those limits. People thought Dali was mad, he knew he was far from it, but understood what being “mad” was.

“Begin by learning to draw and paint like the old masters. After that, you can do as you like; everyone will respect you.” – Salvador Dali Quote.

Dali was a complete technician through and through, make no doubt about it. What very few people know, is that he might have been the most talented painter of the 20th century when it came to painting technique. This came from Dali’s early training and his admiration for Europe’s old masters; Vermeer, Velasquez, Rembrandt. In fact, he dedicated an entire graphic prints suite to works by these masters, Changes in Great Masterpieces. His mustache was inspired by Velasquez, his theory and use of light he study from Vermeer, his exercise of contrast he learned from Rembrandt. Dali once stated he would gladly chop of a limb if for a moment he could see Velasquez work in his study.

“I do not understand why, when I ask for grilled lobster in a restaurant, I’m never served a cooked telephone.” – Salvador Dali Quote.

In a surreal world, Dali would never experience this confusion.