Salvador Dali? Leonard Lyons? Apocryphal?
Question for Quote Investigator: Two very different statements about madness have been attributed to the famous Spanish surrealist artist Salvador Dali:
(1) The only difference between me and a madman is that I am not a madman.
(2) There is only one difference between a madman and me. The madman thinks he is sane. I know I am mad.
I have not been able to find solid citations for either of these remarks. Would you please explore this topic?
Reply from Quote Investigator: The earliest match located by QI appeared in 1934 within a Springfield, Massachusetts newspaper which reported on a visit Salvador Dali made to Hartford, Connecticut. The paper stated that Dali spoke “Catalan French”, but the paper presented his words in English. Boldface added to excerpts by QI:1
He was, he explained, recreating dreams, so that one could see them in the midst of every-day objects. The world that he is investigating is the world Freud wrote of.
“The only difference between me and a madman,” he remarked calmly, “is that I am not a madman. I am able to distinguish between the dream and the real world.”
Salvador Dali died in 1989. The earliest match QI has found for the second statement in the inquiry occurred in 1994. Thus, the evidence supporting the second statement is weak.
Below are additional selected citations in chronological order.
In 1934 “The Baltimore Sun” of Maryland also reported on Salvador Dali’s visit to Hartford:2
Accompanying these exhibits were M. Dali’s remarks to the effect that he did not always understand his own works even after he had thought about them, that “the only difference between me and a madman is that I am not a madman.”
In 1935 “The Boston Globe” reported that Dali had delivered lectures in New York, and the paper printed remarks from Dali’s latest lecture:3
“How would you expect anybody to understand the significance of my pictures when I myself, who have made them, I myself—I regret to say—do not understand them either. I must admit that I am the first to be surprised and often terrified by the extravagant images that I see appear with fatality on my canvas.”
Dali continued these comments with the following:
“This is the reason that in a way my things resemble the work of a madman. The only difference between myself and a madman is that I am not mad.”
Dali’s comment continued to circulate in 1943 when “Newsweek” magazine printed the following:4
Asked to explain his paintings, he often answered: “I don’t understand them entirely myself; it is enough for me to paint them.” Asked to explain his own character, he would say: “The only difference between me and a madman is that I am not mad.” Now he has really attempted to explain himself. He has written his autobiography, “The Secret Life of Salvador Dali.”
In 1957 syndicated columnist Leonard Lyons printed a version of the quotation:5
Salvador Dali was reproached for doing and saying mad things. “Well, there’s very little difference between a madman and myself,” said Dali. “As a matter of fact, the only difference is that I am not mad.”
In 1965 Salvador Dali published “Diary of a Genius” which contained the following passage:6
The day after I first started reading Thus Spoke Zarathustra I had already made up my mind about Nietzsche. He was a weakling who had been feckless enough to go mad, when it is essential, in this domain, not to go mad! These reflections furnished the elements of my first motto, which was to become the theme of my life: “The only difference between a madman and myself is that I am not mad!” It took me three days to assimilate and digest Nietzsche.
In 1994 Des MacHale published the compilation “Humorous Quotations” which contained the second statement in the inquiry credited to Dali:7
There is only one difference between a madman and me. The madman thinks he is sane. I know I am mad.
Salvador Dali
In 2003 the “Ledger-Enquirer” of Columbus, Georgia printed the following as a “Quotable” item:8
“There is only one difference between a madman and me. The madman thinks he is sane. I know I am mad.”
Salvador Dali
In conclusion, Salvador Dali deserves credit for the first statement in the inquiry. He delivered the remark in 1934 during a lecture in Hartford, Connecticut although the evidence suggested that he did not speak it in English. An instance also occurred in Dali’s 1965 book “Diary of a Genius” in English although that book first appeared in French.
The second statement in the inquiry appeared in 1994 within a compilation of quotations. But this occurrence was after Dali’s death in 1989. Also, no precise citation was given; hence, this evidence was weak.
Image Notes: Public domain surrealist picture with a digital watch
Acknowledgement: Great thanks to Craig Good whose inquiry led QI to formulate this question and perform this exploration.
- 1934 December 20, Springfield Daily News, Dali Is Seeking a Place in Sun for Delirium, Quote Page 8, Column 6, Springfield, Massachusetts. (Newspapers_com) ↩︎
- 1934 December 23, The Baltimore Sun, Elucidation Unnecessary, Quote Page 8, Column 2, Baltimore, Maryland. (ProQuest) ↩︎
- 1935 January 19, The Boston Globe, Who Understands Them? by A. J. Philpott, Quote Page 14, Column 6, Boston, Massachusetts. (Newspapers_com) ↩︎
- 1943 January 11, Newsweek, Section: Art, Open Secret, Start Page 62, Quote Page 62, Column 3, Weekly Publications Inc., Dayton. Ohio. (Verified with scans) ↩︎
- 1957 December 20, The Bayonne Times, The Lyons Den by Leonard Lyons, Quote Page 4, Column 2, Bayonne, New Jersey. (Newspapers_com) ↩︎
- 1965, Diary of a Genius by Salvador Dali, Translated from the French by Richard Howard, Chapter: 1952 May, Quote Page 7, Doubleday & Company, Garden City, New York. (Verified with scans) ↩︎
- 1994, Humorous Quotations, Compiled by Des MacHale, Topic: Art, Quote Page 10, Mercier Press, Dublin, Ireland. (Verified with scans) ↩︎
- 2003 August 31, Ledger-Enquirer, Quotable, Quote Page F2, Column 3, Columbus, Georgia. (Newspapers_com) ↩︎