Quotes by
Jean Cocteau |
1889-1963 , French artist
French writer, designer, playwright, artist and filmmaker. Cocteau is best known for his novel Les Enfants Terribles (1929), and the films Blood of a Poet (1930), Les Parents Terribles (1948), Beauty and the Beast (1946) and Orpheus (1949). | 46 quotes | 5,580 visits |
Quotations
| • | Truth is too naked. It does not stimulate men. 16 |
| • | I only fear the death of others. For me, true death is that of the people I love. 14 |
| • | There is an angel inside me whom I am constantly shocking. 12 |
| • | God exists. He is the devil. 11 |
| • | I am a lie who always speaks the truth. 9 |
| • | I've always preferred mythology to history. History is truth that becomes an illusion. Mythology is an illusion that becomes reality. 9 |
| • | We must believe in luck. For how else can we explain the success of those we don’t like? 8 |
| • | We shelter an angel within us. We must be the guardians of that angel. 7 |
| • | Art produces ugly things which frequently become more beautiful with time. Fashion, on the other hand, produces beautiful things which always become ugly with time. 7 |
| • | Life is a horizontal fall. 6 |
| • | Be yourself. The world worships the original. 6 |
| • | Mirrors would do well to reflect a little more before sending back images. 5 |
| • | One is either judge or accused. The judge sits, the accused stands. Live on your feet. 5 |
| • | Fight any instinct to be humorless, for humorlessness is the worst of all absurdities. 5 |
| • | I love cats because I enjoy my home; and little by little, they become its visible soul. 5 |
| • | The poet doesn't invent. He listens. 5 |
| • | An artist cannot speak about his art any more than a plant can discuss horticulture. 4 |
| • | Art is science made clear. 4 |
| • | There are truths which one can only say after having won the right to say them. 4 |
| • | Understand that some of your enemies are amongst your best friends. 4 |
| • | The greatest masterpiece in literature is only a dictionary out of order. 4 |
| • | Free will is the alibi of God. 4 |
| • | Italians are French in good mood. 4 |
| • | Greece is a corpse devoured by its myths. 4 |
| • | I have a piece of great and sad news to tell you: I am dead. 3 |
| • | Poetry is indispensable — if I only knew what for. 3 |
| • | What the public criticizes in you, cultivate. It is you. 3 |
| • | All good music resembles something. Good music stirs by its mysterious resemblance to the objects and feelings which motivated it. 3 |
| • | The worst tragedy for a poet is to be admired through being misunderstood. 3 |
| • | In Paris, everybody wants to be an actor; nobody is content to be a spectator. 3 |
| • | If it has to choose who is to be crucified, the crowd will always save Barabbas. 3 |
| • | Be helpful, even if it compromises you. 3 |
| • | Compromise yourself. Obscure your own trail. 3 |
| • | He who is affected by an insult is infected by it. 3 |
| • | Style is a simple way of saying complicated things. 3 |
| • | The purity of a revolution can last a fortnight. 3 |
| • | Penelope was the last trial of Ulysses at the end of his journey. 3 |
| • | When a work appears to be ahead of its time, it is only the time that is behind the work. 2 |
| • | One must be a living man and a posthumous artist. 2 |
| • | Tact in audacity is knowing how far you can go without going too far. 2 |
| • | A true poet does not bother to be poetical. Nor does a nursery gardener scent his roses. 2 |
| • | Find first, seek later. 2 |
| • | Children and lunatics cut the Gordian knot which the poet spends his life patiently trying to untie. 2 |
| • | What the public like best is fruit that is overripe. 2 |
| • | Marlene Dietrich has a name that begins with a caress and ends with a whip hit. 2 |
Funny Quotes
| • | Victor Hugo was a madman who thought he was Victor Hugo. 2 |
