Arcanum 17 Quotes

“Today's education is entirely defective to the extent that, calling itself positivist, it begins with abusing the child's trust by presenting as true what is only either a temporary phenomenon or a hypothesis, when it's not a blatant untruth; and to the extent that it prevents children from forming in good time their own opinions by creasing into them certain habits that make their freedom of judgement an illusion”
― André Breton, Arcanum 17

“A woman's hand, your hand in its starry paleness only to help you walk downstairs, refracts its beam into my own. Its slightest touch branches out inside me and in a moment will trace above us those delicate canopies where the inverted sky stirs its blue leaves with misty aspen or willow. As for me, to what do I actually owe this remission of a pain that so many others suffer because of less guilt than I feel today? Before I met you I'd known misfortune, despair. Before I met you, come on, those words mean nothing. You know very well that when I first laid eyes on you I recognized you without the slightest hesitation. And from what borders did you come, so fearfully protected against everyone, what initiation to which no one or almost no one was admitted has consecrated what you are.”
― André Breton, Arcanum 17

“Avant de te connaître, j'avais rencontré le malheur, le désespoir. Avant de te connaître, allons donc, ces mots n'ont pas de sens. Tu sais bien qu'en te voyant la première fois, c'est sans la moindre hésitation que je t'ai reconnue.”
― André Breton, Arcane 17 : Enté d'ajours - Suivi de "André Breton ou la transparence" par Michel Beaujour