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Jean Cocteau
91 quotes
“A true poet does not bother to be poetical. Nor does a nursery gardener scent his roses.”
Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) said by 1963 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Victor Hugo was a madman who thought he was Victor Hugo.”
Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) said by 1963 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Life is a horizontal fall.”
Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) said by 1963 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Everything one does in life, even love, occurs in an express train racing toward death. To smoke opium is to get out of the train while it is still moving. It is to concern oneself with something other than life or death.”
Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) said by 1963 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A car can massage organs which no masseur can reach. It is the one remedy for the disorders of the great sympathetic nervous system. … The craving for opium can be endured in a car.”
Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) said by 1963 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If a hermit lives in a state of ecstasy, his lack of comfort becomes the height of comfort. He must relinquish it.”
Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) said by 1963 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There is always a period when a man with a beard shaves it off. This period does not last. He returns headlong to his beard.”
Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) said by 1963 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If an addict who has been completely cured starts smoking again he no longer experiences the discomfort of his first addiction. There exists, therefore, outside alkaloids and habit, a sense for opium, an intangible habit which lives on, despite the recasting of the organism.... The dead drug leaves a ghost behind. At certain hours it haunts the house.”
Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) said by 1963 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is not I who become addicted, it is my body.”
Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) said by 1963 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Respect movements, flee schools.”
Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) said by 1963 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Do as the beautiful woman: see to your figure and your petticoats. Though, of course, I am not speaking literally.”
Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) said by 1963 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“People would say to Al Brown: "You are not a boxer. You are a dancer." He laughed at this, and won.”
Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) said by 1963 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Do not take up cause against the inaccuracies printed about you. They are your protection.”
Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) said by 1963 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Be a constant outrage to modesty There is nothing to fear: modesty is exercised only among the blind.”
Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) said by 1963 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“One is either judge or accused. The judge sits, the accused stands. Live on your feet.”
Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) said by 1963 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Hasten slowly. Run faster than beauty.”
Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) said by 1963 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Find first, seek later.”
Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) said by 1963 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Be helpful, even if it compromises you.”
Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) said by 1963 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Compromise yourself. Obscure your own trail.”
Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) said by 1963 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He who is affected by an insult is infected by it.”
Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) said by 1963 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Understand that some of your enemies are amongst your best friends.”
Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) said by 1963 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Fight any instinct to be humorless, for humorlessness is the worst of all absurdities.”
Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) said by 1963 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Do not fear being ridiculous in relation to the ridiculous.”
Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) said by 1963 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“See your disappointments as good fortune. One plan's deflation is another's inflation.”
Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) said by 1963 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Do not close the circle. Leave it open. Descartes closes the circle. Pascal leaves it open. Rousseau's triumph over the encyclopedists is to have left his circle open when they closed theirs.”
Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) said by 1963 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Allow the power of the soul to grow as flagrant as the power of sex.”
Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) said by 1963 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Expect neither reward nor beatitude. Return noble waves for ignoble.”
Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) said by 1963 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Hate only hatred.”
Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) said by 1963 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Disavow anyone who provokes or accepts the extermination of a race to which he does not belong.”
Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) said by 1963 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Be a mere assistant to your unconscious. Do only half the work. The rest will do itself.”
Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) said by 1963 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Consider metaphysics as an extension of the physical.”
Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) said by 1963 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Know that your work speaks only to those on the same wavelength as you.”
Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) said by 1963 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Anything of any importance cannot help but be unrecognizable, since it bears no resemblance to anything already known.”
Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) said by 1963 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The ultimate politeness in art consists of speaking only to those who are able to uncover and measure its relationships. Anything else is symbolic, and symbolism is merely transcendental imagery.”
Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) said by 1963 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Poetry, being elegance itself, cannot hope to achieve visibility. In that case, you ask me, of what use is it? Of no use. Who will see it? No one. Which does not prevent it from being an outrage to modesty, though its exhibitionism is squandered on the blind. It is enough for poetry to express a personal ethic, which can then break away in the form of a work. It insists on living its own life. It becomes the pretext for a thousand misunderstandings that go by the name of glory...”
Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) said by 1963 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Beauty is always the result of an accident. Of a violent lapse between acquired habits and those yet to be acquired. It baffles and disgusts. It may even horrify. Once the new habit has been acquired, the accident ceases to be an accident. It becomes classical and loses its shock value.”
Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) said by 1963 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Man seeks to escape himself in myth, and does so by any means at his disposal... unnable to withdraw into himself, he disguises himself. Lies and inaccuracy give him a few moments of comfort, the trifling feeling of escape experienced at a masked ball. He distances himself from that which he feels and sees. He invents. He transfigures. He mythifies. He creates. He fancies himself an artist. He imitates, in his small way, the painters he claims are mad.”
Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) said by 1963 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Accuracy is vexing to a crowd of would-be fantasizers. Hasn't our age coined the term "escapism," when in fact the only way to escape oneself is to allow oneself to be invaded?”
Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) said by 1963 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Poetry is a religion without hope. The poet exhausts himself in its service, knowing that, in the long run, a masterpiece is nothing but the performance of a trained dog on very shaky ground.”
Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) said by 1963 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Poetry is an ethic. By ethic I mean a secret code of behavior, a discipline constructed and conducted according to the capabilities of a man who rejects the falsifications of the categorical imperative. This personal morality may appear to be immorality itself in the eyes of those who lie to themselves, or who live a life of confusion, in such a manner that, for them, a lie becomes the truth, and our truth becomes a lie...”
Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) said by 1963 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Beauty cannot be recognized with a cursory glance.”
Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) said by 1963 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source