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

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

Intelligence without ambition is a bird without wings.
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

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

Painting is an infinitely minute part of my personality.
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