101+ Best Salvador Dali Quotes: Exclusive Selection

Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech, Marquis of Dalí de Púbol was a Spanish surrealist artist. Born in Figueres, Catalonia, Dalí was a skilled draftsman, best known for the striking and bizarre images in his work. Profoundly inspirational Salvador Dali quotes will brighten up your day and make you feel ready to take on anything.

If you’re searching for inspiring art quotes by famous artists that perfectly capture what you’d like to say or just want to feel inspired yourself, browse through an amazing collection of quotes from Bob Ross, amazing Andy Warhol quotes and top Banksy quotes.

Famous Salvador Dali Quotes

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

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

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

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

Every morning when I wake up, I experience an exquisite joy the joy of being Salvador Dalí and I ask myself in rapture What wonderful things is this Salvador Dalí going to accomplish today? Salvador Dalí

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

A true artist is not one who is inspired, but one who inspires others. Salvador Dali

Let my enemies devour each other. Salvador Dali

What is important is to spread confusion, not eliminate it. Salvador Dalí

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

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

Liking money like I like it, is nothing less than mysticism. Money is a glory. Salvador Dali

An elegant woman is a woman who despises you and has no hair under her arms. Salvador Dali

The terrifying and edible beauty of Art Nouveau architecture. Salvador Dali

The sole difference between myself and a madman is the fact that I am not mad! 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

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

Intelligence without ambition is a bird without wings. Salvador Dali

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

I am not strange. I am just not normal. Salvador Dalí

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

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

The secret of my influence has always been that it remained secret. 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

Painting is an infinitely minute part of my personality. 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

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

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

It is not necessary for the public to know whether I am joking or whether I am serious, just as it is not necessary for me to know it myself. Salvador Dali

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

Everything alters me, but nothing changes me. 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

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

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

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

What is a television apparatus to man, who has only to shut his eyes to see the most inaccessible regions of the seen and the never seen, who has only to imagine in order to pierce through walls and cause all the planetary Baghdads of his dreams to rise from the dust. Salvador Dali

So little of what could happen does happen. Salvador Dalí

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

Let my enemies devour each other. Salvador Dali

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

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

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

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

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

Beauty should be edible, or not at all. Salvador Dalí

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

Give me two hours a day of activity, and I’ll take the other twenty-two in dreams. Salvador Dalí

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

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

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

It’s better to have loved and lost than do forty pounds of laundry a week. Salvador Dalí

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

Everyone should eat hashish, but only once. 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

Forever will be you and me. 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

I do not understand why, when I ask for grilled lobster in a restaurant, I’m never served a cooked telephone. Salvador Dalí

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

This grandiose tragedy that we call modern art. Salvador Dalí

We must always remember that the Chinese revolution was not a peasant’s revolution, but one of the extreme Right. Salvador Dali

The reason some portraits don’t look true to life is that some people make no effort to resemble their pictures. Salvador Dalí

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

Let the labyrinth of wrinkles be furrowed in my brow with the red hot iron of my own life, let my hair whiten and my step become vacillating, on condition that I can save the intelligence of my soul let my unformed childhood soul, as it ages, assume the rational and esthetic forms of an architecture, let me learn just everything that others cannot teach me, what only life would be capable of marking deeply in my skin! Salvador Dalí

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

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

An elegant woman is a woman who despises you and has no hair under her arms. Salvador Dalí

What is a television apparatus to man, who has only to shut his eyes to see the most inaccessible regions of the seen and the never seen, who has only to imagine in order to pierce through walls and cause all the planetary Baghdads of his dreams to rise from the dust. 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 Dalí

I want to perceive and understand the hidden powers and laws of things, in order to have them in my power. Salvador Dalí

Beauty should be edible, or not at all. Salvador Dalí

The one thing the world will never have enough of is the outrageous. Salvador Dalí

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

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

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

Intelligence without ambition is a bird without winds. Salvador Dalí

Everyone should eat hashish, but only once. Salvador Dalí

I dedicate this novel to Gala, who was constantly by my side while I was writing it, who was the good fairy of my equilibrium, who banished the salamanders of my doubts and strengthened the lions of certainties. Salvador Dalí

Give me two hours a day of activity, and I’ll take the other twenty two in dreams. Salvador Dalí

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 Dalí

Happy is he who causes a scandal. Salvador Dalí

Surrealism is not a movement. It is a latent state of mind perceivable through the powers of dream and nightmare. Salvador Dalí

Have no fear of perfection you’ll never reach it. Salvador Dalí

My mother’s death supervened, and this was the greatest blow I had experienced in my life. I worshipped her. I could not resign myself to the loss of a being on whom I counted to make invisible the unavoidable blemishes of my soul. Salvador Dalí

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

When we are asleep in this world, we are awake in another. Salvador Dalí

I don’t do drugs. I am drugs. Salvador Dalí

If you understand your painting beforehand, you might as well not paint it. Salvador Dalí

I want to perceive and understand the hidden powers and laws of things, in order to have them in my power. Salvador Dalí

My mother’s death supervened, and this was the greatest blow I had experienced in my life. I worshipped her. I could not resign myself to the loss of a being on whom I counted to make invisible the unavoidable blemishes of my soul. Salvador Dalí

Intelligence without ambition is a bird without wings. Salvador Dalí

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 Dalí

It is not necessary for the public to know whether I am joking or whether I am serious, just as it is not necessary for me to know it myself. Salvador Dalí

I am the Don Quixote of unreality. Salvador Dalí

It’s better to have loved and lost than do forty pounds of laundry a week. Salvador Dalí

An unpredictable, faithful and objective hazard seems to have systematically singled out my life to make what are normally uneventful incidents violent, phenomenal and memorable. Salvador Dalí