I like subversive humor, freckles, women's knees and long hair, the laughter of playing children, and a girl running down the street.
Rene MagritteWe are surrounded by curtains. We only perceive the world behind a curtain of semblance. At the same time, an object needs to be covered in order to be recognized at all.
Rene MagritteI need to see the original paintings just as little as I have to read the original manuscripts of books.
Rene MagritteMy painting is visible images that conceal nothing... they evoke mystery. Mystery means nothing. It is unknowable.
Rene MagritteToo often we tend to reduce what is strange to what is familiar. I intend to restore the familiar to the strange.
Rene MagritteEverything we see hides another thing, we always want to see what is hidden by what we see. There is an interest in that which is hidden and which the visible does not show us. This interest can take the form of a quite intense feeling, a sort of conflict, one might say, between the visible that is hidden and the visible that is present.
Rene MagritteIf the dream is a translation of waking life, waking life is also a translation of the dream.
Rene MagritteTo be a surrealist means barring from your mind all remembrance of what you have seen, and being always on the lookout for what has never been.
Rene MagritteEverything we see hides another thing, we always want to see what is hidden by what we see, but it is impossible. Humans hide their secrets too well.
Rene MagritteMy painting is visible images which conceal nothing... they evoke mystery and indeed when one sees one of my pictures, one asks oneself this simple question 'What does that mean'? It does not mean anything, because mystery means nothing either, it is unknowable.
Rene MagritteWe must not fear daylight just because it almost always illuminates a miserable world.
Rene MagritteI think we are responsible for the universe, but that doesn't mean we decide anything.
Rene MagritteMy investigations resembled the pursuit of the solution to a problem for which I had three data: the object, the thing connected with it in the shadow of my consciousness, and the light wherein that thing would become apparent.
Rene MagritteThose who become entangled in these false ideas are prevented from perceiving the Integral Oneness.
Rene MagritteAn object is not so attached to its name that we cannot find another one that would suit it better.
Rene MagritteI detest my past, and anyone else's. I detest resignation, patience, professional heroism and obligatory beautiful feelings. I also detest the decorative arts, folklore, advertising, voices making announcements, aerodynamism, boy scouts, the smell of moth balls, events of the moment, and drunken people.
Rene MagritteThe feeling we experience while we look at a picture is not to be distinguished from the picture or from ourselves. the feeling, picture, and ourselves are united in one mystery.
Rene MagritteThe famous pipe. How people reproached me for it! And yet, could you stuff my pipe? No, it's just a representation, is it not? So if I had written on my picture “This is a pipe”, I'd have been lying!
Rene MagritteOnly thought can resemble. It resembles by being what it sees, hears, or knows; it becomes what the world offers it.
Rene MagritteVisible things can be invisible. However, our powers of thought grasp both the visible and the invisible – and I make use of painting to render thoughts visible.
Rene MagritteThe mind loves the unknown. It loves images whose meaning is unknown, since the meaning of the mind itself is unknown.
Rene MagritteIf one looks at a thing with the intention of trying to discover what it means, one ends up no longer seeing the thing itself, but of thinking of the question that is raised.
Rene MagrittePeople who look for symbolic meaning fail to grasp the inherent poetry and mystery of the images.
Rene Magritte