What is a television apparatus to man, who has only to shut his

The surrealist master Salvador Dalí, whose imagination seemed to defy the laws of earth and reason, once declared: “What is a television apparatus to man, who has only to shut his eyes to see the most inaccessible regions of the seen and the never seen, who has only to imagine in order to pierce through walls and cause all the planetary Baghdads of his dreams to rise from the dust.” In these words, Dalí gives voice to one of the most profound truths about the human spirit — that within each of us lies a world more vast than any machine could ever reveal. The artist, the dreamer, the thinker — all possess an inner landscape more boundless than galaxies, and it is through the power of imagination that humanity transcends the limits of time, space, and invention.

Dalí spoke these words in the twentieth century, an age enthralled by technology — when the television had become a window through which people sought to see the world. Yet Dalí, ever the rebel against conformity, warned that this window could also become a prison, narrowing vision rather than expanding it. For what machine, he asks, could ever rival the creative power of the mind? When a man closes his eyes, he does not enter darkness — he enters the infinite. Within the theater of thought, he can journey to the “most inaccessible regions of the seen and the never seen.” He can imagine not only what is, but what could be; not only what has existed, but what should exist.

This is the essence of Dalí’s genius — and of his philosophy. To him, the imagination was not a refuge from reality, but its highest expression. He believed that the true artist, like a visionary prophet, could pierce through walls, both physical and conceptual, revealing the unseen truths that lie beneath the surface of ordinary life. The “planetary Baghdads” he describes are symbols of the rich and wondrous worlds we can build in our own minds. Just as the fabled city of Baghdad once represented the height of culture, wisdom, and splendor in the ancient world, Dalí’s imagined Baghdads rise “from the dust” of thought, born not of concrete or steel but of dreams. For him, the mind was the divine architect — and imagination, its holy instrument.

History, too, is filled with men and women who have proven the truth of Dalí’s vision. Consider Leonardo da Vinci, who, centuries before airplanes and submarines, imagined machines that would one day conquer sky and sea. With no laboratory but his own mind, he sketched the wings of flight, the tanks of war, and the cities of the future. His inventions were born not from the television or the telescope, but from the inner eye — that sacred faculty of vision that sees before it touches, that dreams before it builds. Or think of Albert Einstein, who, long before equations confirmed his theories, traveled in imagination upon beams of light, envisioning what no human eye had ever seen. These visionaries remind us that the imagination is not idle fancy; it is the engine of creation itself.

Dalí’s words also contain a challenge. In the modern age, where technology dazzles and distracts, man risks forgetting the power of his own mind. He turns outward instead of inward, seeking stimulation rather than creation. The television, for Dalí, is not evil — but it is lesser. It is a reflection of another’s imagination, not the awakening of one’s own. To rely too much upon it is to surrender the throne of your own consciousness. He calls us, therefore, to close our eyes — not in sleep, but in awakening. For within the silence of the mind lies a universe waiting to be born.

To understand Dalí is to understand that imagination is sacred. It is the bridge between the mortal and the divine, the vessel through which man participates in the act of creation. When he speaks of piercing through walls, he is not speaking only of architecture or physics, but of limitations — the walls of fear, of doubt, of conformity. The imagination shatters these barriers. It allows the soul to walk where the body cannot, to see what the senses cannot perceive, and to bring forth beauty where once there was only dust. In this way, Dalí’s quote becomes not merely a celebration of imagination, but a manifesto for human potential.

So let this be the lesson, my children of thought and dream: Do not depend upon the screens of the world to show you what is possible. Close your eyes. Look inward. Dream boldly. Within your mind are mountains no explorer has climbed, cities no architect has drawn, melodies no musician has heard. The imagination is not an escape — it is the origin of all that is real. The future belongs not to those who consume images, but to those who create them.

Therefore, as Dalí teaches, do not fear to dwell in your inner world. Cultivate your visions. Feed your imagination with wonder and curiosity. For the greatest inventions of mankind — from fire to flight, from poetry to philosophy — were once invisible dreams within the quiet chambers of the human soul. And when the dreamer awakens, when he calls forth the “planetary Baghdads of his dreams,” the dust of the ordinary becomes the gold of creation. For in the end, every masterpiece ever made began the same way — with a man or woman who dared to close their eyes and see.