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The desire to survive and the fear of death are artistic sentiments
Salvador Dali
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Interpretation

What this quote means

Art is driven by the human instinct to survive and the inherent fear of death.

In this quote, Salvador Dali suggests that the fundamental emotions surrounding life and mortality are deeply intertwined with artistic expression. The desire to cling to life and the anxiety about our inevitable end fuel creativity, inspiring artists to explore themes of existence, beauty, and the human condition through their work.

Themes

ArtSurvivalDeathCreativityEmotion

In practice

Example use cases

This quote would be fitting in a discussion about the psychological influences on art.

More from Salvador Dali

There are some days when I think I'm going to die from an overdose of satisfaction.
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Since I don't smoke, I decided to grow a mustache - it is better for the health. However, I always carried a jewel-studded cigarette case in which, instead of tobacco, were carefully placed several mustaches, Adolphe Menjou style. I offered them politely to my friends: "Mustache? Mustache? Mustache?" Nobody dared to touch them. This was my test regarding the sacred aspect of mustaches.
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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!
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The problem with the youth of today' is that one is no longer part of it.
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You have to systematically create confusion, it sets creativity free. Everything that is contradictory creates life
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All of my knowledge, of both science and religion, I incorporate into the classical tradition of my painting.
Salvador DaliRead

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