Surrealism will usher you into death, which is a secret society. It will glove your hand, burying therein the profound M with which the word Memory begins.
Andre BretonRead
I myself shall continue living in my glass house where you can always see who comes to call, where everything hanging from the the ceiling and on the walls stays where it is as if by magic, where I sleep nights in a glass bed, under glass sheets, where who I am will sooner or later appear etched by a diamond.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote conveys the idea of transparency in one's life and the inevitability of one's true self being revealed over time.
In this quote, Andre Breton uses the metaphor of a 'glass house' to illustrate a life of openness and honesty. He suggests that living transparently allows others to see one’s true self, and that eventually, the essence and character of a person will be revealed, much like a diamond being etched. This reflects the deeper philosophical notion that our identities are eventually unveiled through our actions and interactions with the world.
Themes
TransparencyIdentitySelf-RevelationHonestyOpenness
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about personal authenticity, one could use this quote to emphasize the importance of living openly.
More from Andre Breton
All quotes →The mind, placed before any kind of difficulty, can find an ideal outlet in the absurd. Accommodation to the absurd readmits adults to the mysterious realm inhabited by children.
Andre BretonRead
Beauty is like a train that ceaselessly roars out of the Gare de Lyon and which I know will never leave, which has not left. It consists of jolts and shocks, many of which do not have much importance, but which we know are destined to produce one Shock, which does...The human heart, beautiful as a seismograph...Beauty will be CONVULSIVE or will not be at all.
Andre BretonRead
I maintain that anyone who still refuses to see, for instance, a horse galloping on a tomato, must be an idiot. A tomato is also a child's balloon - Surrealism, again, having suppressed the word "like."
Andre BretonRead
There is no use being alive if one must work. The event from which each of us is entitled to expect the revelation of his own life’s meaning - that event which I may not yet have found, but on whose path I seek myself - is not earned by work.
Andre BretonRead
Let us not mince words: the marvelous is always beautiful, anything marvelous is beautiful, in fact only the marvelous is beautiful.
Andre BretonRead
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