Jean Cocteau Quotes - Page 8

Quotes about:

• A picture is not a window...an abstract refers to no reality but its own.

  Jean Cocteau

  Reality, Window, Abstract

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• See your disappointments as good fortune. One plan's deflation is another's inflation.

  Jean Cocteau

  Disappointment, Deflation, Fortune

  "Diary of an Unknown". Book by Jean Cocteau, 1988.

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• The cinema is death at work.

  Jean Cocteau

  Cinema

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• Expect neither reward nor beatitude. Return noble waves for ignoble.

  Jean Cocteau

  Noble, Rewards, Return

  "Diary of an Unknown". Book by Jean Cocteau, 1988.

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• Art produces ugly things which frequently become beautiful with time.

  Jean Cocteau

  Beautiful, Fashion, Art

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• Poetry is a religion without hope, but its martyrs guarantee the eternal truth of its dogma.

  Jean Cocteau

  Guarantees, Dogma, Martyr

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• Since it's now fashionable to laugh at the conservative French Academy, I have remained a rebel by joining it.

  Jean Cocteau

  Laughing, Rebel, Joining

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• The instinct of nearly all societies is to lock up anybody who is truly free. First, society begins by trying to beat you up. If this fails, they try to poison you. If this fails too, the finish by loading honors on your head.

  Jean Cocteau

  Truth, Honor, Intuition

  "Moments of Clarity". Book by Thomas L. Jackson, March 31, 2002.

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• Inspiration arrived as a result of profound indolence... I awoke with a start and witnessed as from a seat in a theatre, three acts of a potentially awesome play.

  Jean Cocteau

  Inspiration, Play, Profound

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• The audience bursts into laughter. With the tragic gag I don't expect the audience to laugh (if they do, I have failed) but I expect a black silence from them that is almost as violent: as laughter.

  Jean Cocteau

  Laughter, Silence, Black

  "Two Screenplays: The Blood of a Poet. The Testament of Orpheus".

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• The only work of art which succeeds is that which fails.

  Jean Cocteau

  Success, Art, Succeed

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• Enough of clouds, waves, aquariums, water-sprites and nocturnal scents; what we need is music of the earth, everyday music..music one can live in like a house.

  Jean Cocteau

  Clouds, Aquariums, Water

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• My little Renoirs. Matisse describes having seen Renoir make these tiny canvases. When he had finished working, he would use up the color left in his brushes on them.

  Jean Cocteau

  Color, Tiny, Use

  Jean Cocteau, Pierre Chanel (1988). “Past tense: diaries”, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt P

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• A prig always finds a last refuge in responsibility.

  Jean Cocteau

  Responsibility, Lasts, Propriety

  Jean Cocteau (1967). “The Infernal Machine: And Other Plays”, p.154, New Directions Publishing

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• Keep braiding one's wavelengths back into oneself. That way they gain all the more external power and surround us with a huge affective and protective zone. Don't talk about this. Never talk about our secret methods. If we talk about them, they stop working.

  Jean Cocteau

  Silence, Secret, Way

  Jean Cocteau, Pierre Chanel (1988). “Past tense: diaries”, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt P

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• 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.

  Jean Cocteau

  Mean, Men, Discipline

  "Diary of an Unknown". Book by Jean Cocteau, 1988.

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• I succeeded in bewitching a fair number and in being intoxicated with my mistakes.

  Jean Cocteau

  Mistake, Numbers, Intoxicated

  Jean Cocteau (2013). “The Difficulty of Being”, p.37, Melville House

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• Statues to great men are made of the stones thrown at them in their lifetime.

  Jean Cocteau

  Men, Stones, Lifetime

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• You are always concentrated on the inner thing. The moment one becomes aware of the crowd, performs for the crowd, it is spectacle.

  Jean Cocteau

  Crowds, Moments

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• Catastrophe, riots, factories blowing up, armies in flight, flood - the ear can detect a whole apocalypse in the starry night of the human body.

  Jean Cocteau

  Army, Night, Ears

  Jean Cocteau (1990). “Opium: The Illustrated Diary of His Cure”, Peter Owen Publishers

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• And history becomes legend and legend becomes history.

  Jean Cocteau

  History, Legends

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• one should always talk well about oneself! The word spreads around and in the end, noone remembers where it started

  Jean Cocteau

  Remember, Ends, Should

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• Do not take up cause against the inaccuracies printed about you. They are your protection.

  Jean Cocteau

  Causes, Protection, Printed

  "Diary of an Unknown". Book by Jean Cocteau, 1988.

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• Do not fear being ridiculous in relation to the ridiculous.

  Jean Cocteau

  Ridiculous, Relation, Do Not Fear

  "Diary of an Unknown". Book by Jean Cocteau, 1988.

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• In two weeks, despite these notes, I shall no longer believe in what I am experiencing now. One must leave behind a trace of this journey which memory forgets. One must, when this is impossible, write or draw without responding to the romantic solicitations of pain, without enjoying suffering like music, tieing a pen to one's foot if need be, helping the doctors who can learn nothing from laziness.

  Jean Cocteau

  Pain, Memories, Believe

  Jean Cocteau (1990). “Opium: The Illustrated Diary of His Cure”, Peter Owen Publishers

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