Tristan Tzara Quotes

You'll never know why you exist, but you'll always allow yourselves to be easily persuaded to take life seriously.

I speak only of myself since I do not wish to convince, I have no right to drag others into my river, I oblige no one to follow me and everybody practices his art in his own way." - Tristan Tzara "Dada Manifesto 1918

Always destroy what is in you.

Thought is made in the mouth.

Not the old, not the new, but the necessary.

Any work of art that can be understood is the product of journalism. The rest, called literature, is a dossier of human imbecility for the guidance of future professors.

The summit sings what is being spoken in the depths.

Every page should explode, either because of its staggering absurdity, the enthusiasm of its principles, or its typography.

Dada is not modern at all, it is rather a return to a quasi-Buddhist religion of indifference. Dada puts an artificial sweetness onto things, a snow of butterflies coming out of a conjurer's skull. Dada is stillness and does not understand the passions.

Morality is the infusion of chocolate into the veins of all men

I am writing a manifesto and there's nothing I want, and yet I'm saying certain things, and in principle I am against manifestos, as I am against principles.

Art needs an operation

There is a literature that does not reach the voracious mass. It is the work of creators, issued from a real necessity in the author, produced for himself. It expresses the knowledge of a supreme egoism, in which laws wither away. Every page must explode, either by profound heavy seriousness, the whirlwind, poetic frenzy, the new, the eternal, the crushing joke, enthusiasm for principles, or by the way in which it is printed. On the one hand a tottering world in flight, betrothed to the glockenspiel of hell, on the other hand: new men. Rough, bouncing, riding on hiccups. Behind them a crippled world and literary quacks with a mania for improvement.

Take a newspaper. Take some scissors. Choose from this paper an article of the length you want to make your poem. Cut out the article. Next carefully cut out each of the words that makes up this article and put them all in a bag. Shake gently. Next take out each cutting one after the other. Copy conscientiously in the order in which they left the bag. The poem will resemble you. And there you are -- an infinitely original author of charming sensibility, even though unappreciated by the vulgar herd.

The rest, called literature, is a dossier of human imbecility for the guidance of future professors.

Una obra de arte jamás es bella, por decreto, objetivamente, para todos.

Les cloches sonnent sans raison et nous aussi

Let us try for once not to be right

Nothing is more pleasant than to baffle people. The

and on the other side for lack of sun there is death perhaps waiting for you in the uproar of a dazzling whirlwind with a thousand explosive arms stretched toward you man flower passing from the seller's hands to those of the lover and the loved passing from the hand of one event to the other passive and sad parakeet the teeth of doors are chattering and everything is done with impatience to make you leave quickly man amiable merchandise eyes open but tightly sealed cough of waterfall rhythm projected in meridians and slices globe spotted with mud with leprosy and blood winter mounted on its pedestal of night poor night weak and sterile draws the drapery of cloud over the cold menagerie and holds in its hands as if to throw a ball luminous number your head full of poetry

For me taking part in the decay of present-day man is an entertaining task and the only one that interests me.

Ultimately, people write to be understood (excepting Gertrude Stein and Tristan Tzara, who were intentionally being difficult).

The cultural and political strands of change could not be separated, any more than during the turbulence of revolution and romanticism of 1790–1830. It has been noted that James Joyce, Tristan Tzara and Lenin were all resident-exiles in Zurich in 1916, waiting for their time to come.

novelty resembles life in the same way as the latest apparition of a harlot proves the essence of God. His existence had already been proved by the accordion, the

Art is at present the only construction complete unto itself, about which nothing more can be said, it is such richness, vitality, sense, wisdom. Understanding, seeing. Describing a flower: relative poetry more or less paper flower. Seeing. …We want to make men realize afresh that the one unique fraternity exists in the moment of intensity when the beautiful and life itself are concentrated on the height of a wire rising toward a burst of light, a blue trembling linked to the earth by our magnetic gazes covering the peaks with snow. The miracle. I open my heart to creation.

Perhaps you will understand me better when I tell you that Dada is a virgin microbe that penetrates with the insistence of air into all the spaces that reason has not been able to fill with words or conventions.

Yo escribo este manifiesto para mostrar que pueden ejecutarse juntas las acciones opuestas, en una sola y fresca respiración; yo estoy en contra de la acción; a favor de la continua contradicción, y también de la afirmación, no estoy ni a favor ni en contra y no lo explico porque odio el sentido común.

If the birds were among us to be mirrored In the tranquil lake above our heads                                              WE MIGHT UNDERSTAND                Death would be a long and beautiful voyage And an endless holiday for the flesh for structure for bone from “The Death of Apollinaire” (La Mort de Guillaume Apollinaire), (1919) The Yale Anthology of Twentieth-century French Poetry. (ale University Press; First Editiion edition, June 10, 2004)

Try to be empty and fill your brain cells with a petty happiness. Always destroy what you have in you.

Il va de soi que nous n’avons pas été toujours et dans toutes circonstances la sœur cadette et chétive de la France. De nombreux Roumains ont fait leurs études en France. Ils ont travaillé dans des instituts de recherche et des laboratoires. Certains ont ajouté quelques noms prestigieux au patrimoine français, roumain et mondial de l’art et de la littérature : Constantin Brancusi, Emil Cioran, Eugène Ionesco, Tristan Tzara, Benjamin Fondane, Georges Enesco. En 1903, Traian Vuia construit le premier avion breveté en France et, quelques années plus tard Henri Condă le premier avion à réaction. N’oublions pas Petrache Poenaru, l’inventeur du stylo : « plume portable sans fin, qui s’alimente elle-même avec de l’encre ». En 1827, son invention a été reconnue et son brevet enregistré sous le n°3208. Il serait peut-être équitable qu’au moment où l’on jette, à juste titre, à la figure les méfaits de nos Tziganes [le livre date de 2013], ceux qui le font se rappellent aussi les noms que nous venons de citer. Rappelons-leur enfin que Hermann Oberth, le père des fusées et des vols spatiaux, est né à Sibiu, que le Roumain Nicolae Paulescu a découvert l’insuline, que depuis très longtemps des têtes couronnées viennent chercher l’énergie du corps et la paix de l’âme à Herculane ou Félix-les-Bains, que les monastères peints de Moldavie sont uniques au monde et que ce n’est certainement pas un hasard si l’héritier de la couronne britannique, le prince Charles, se sent chez lui dans les villages de Transylvanie. Et que dire de cette civilisation du bois et de la pierre unique au monde du Maramureș ?

Dada est la vie sans pantoufles ni parallèles; qui est contre et pour l'unité et décidément contre le futur; [...] et crachons sur l'humanité.

Dada n'a aucune prétention comme la vie devrait être. Peut-être me comprendrez-vous mieux quand je vous dirai que dada est un microbe vierge qui s'introduit avec l'insistance de l'air dans tous les espaces que la raison n'a pu combler de mots ou de conventions.