Civilization Is Nothing Else But The Attempt

Man Must Not Only Make Himself: The Weightiest Thing He Has To Do Is To Determine What He Is Going To Be. He Is Causa Sui To The Second Power.

The Poet Begins Where The Man Ends. The Man's Lot Is To Live His Human Life, The Poet's To Invent What Is Nonexistent.

Every Intellectual Effort Sets Us Apart From The Commonplace, And Leads Us By Hidden And Difficult Paths To Secluded Spots Where We Find Ourselves Amid Unaccustomed Thoughts.

The Surrealist Thinks He Has Outstripped The Whole Of Literary History When He Has Written (here A Word That There Is No Need To Write) Where Others Have Written "jasmines, Swans And Fauns." But What He Has Really Done Has Been Simply To Bring To Light Another Form Of Rhetoric Which Hitherto Lay Hidden In The Latrines.

Liberalism -- It Is Well To Recall This Today -- Is The Supreme Form Of Generosity; It Is The Right Which The Majority Concedes To Minorities And Hence It Is The Noblest Cry That Has Ever Resounded In This Planet. It Announces The Determination To Share Existence With The Enemy; More Than That, With An Enemy Which Is Weak.