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Inspirational Quotes by Jean Cocteau

20 Inspirational quotes by Jean Cocteau

All Inspirational quotes Jean Cocteau’s page

I am happy to exhibit, but not to put myself on exhibition.

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It was the East that should have sent us missionaries.

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The eyes of the dead are closed gently; we also have to open gently the eyes of the living.

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I know that poetry is indispensable, but to what I could not say.

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One is either judge or accused. The judge sits, the accused stands. Live on your feet.

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Beauty makes one lose one's head. Poetry is born of this decapitation

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Since these mysteries exceed my grasp, I shall pretend to have organized them.

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And history becomes legend and legend becomes history.

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Nothing ever gets anywhere. The earth keeps turning round and gets nowhere. The moment is the only thing that counts.

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My only politics have been friendship.

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Be a mere assistant to your unconscious. Do only half the work. The rest will do itself.

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Picasso said that everything is a miracle, that it's a miracle that we don't dissolve in our baths.

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The art of genius is knowing how far out is too far.

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Look out! Be on your guard, because alone of all the arts, music moves all around you.

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It is not inspiration; it is expiration.

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Beauty cannot be recognized with a cursory glance.

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There are poets and there are grownups.

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One sits down first; one thinks afterwards.

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The joy of the young is to disobey

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It seems to me that invisibility is the required provision of elegance. Elegance ceases to exist when it is noticed.

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More by Jean Cocteau

What is history after all? History is facts which become lies in the end.

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I am happy to exhibit, but not to put myself on exhibition.

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Love is mainly an affair of short spasms. If these spasms disappoint us, love dies. It is very seldom that it weathers the experience…

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I believe in luck: how else can you explain the success of those you dislike?

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I have a piece of great and sad news to tell you: I am dead.

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Fight any instinct to be humorless, for humorlessness is the worst of all absurdities.

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Lying is the only art form that the public sanctions and instinctively prefers to reality.

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The dead drug leaves a ghost behind. At certain hours it haunts the house.

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“Vivre est une chute horizontale”

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I expect a black silence that is almost as violent as laughter.

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My method is simple: not to bother about poetry. It must come of its own accord. Merely whispering its name drives it away.

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If a poet has a dream, it is not of becoming famous, but of being believed.

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