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Jean Cocteau Inspirational Quotes (126)

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The artist is a kind of prison from which the works of art escape.
Jean Cocteau
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The actual tragedies of life bear no relation to one's preconceived ideas. In the event, one is always bewildered by their simplicity, their grandeur of design, and by that element of the bizarre which seems inherent in them.
Jean Cocteau
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One of the characteristics of the dream is that nothing surprises us in it. With no regret, we agree to live in it with strangers, completely cut off from our habits and friends.
Jean Cocteau
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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
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My only politics have been friendship.
Jean Cocteau
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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
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The only work of art which succeeds is that which fails.
Jean Cocteau
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Youth can only assert itself through the conviction that its ventures surpass all others and resemble nothing.
Jean Cocteau
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Youth is certain what it rejects before it knows what it will accept.
Jean Cocteau
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Tact in audacity is knowing how far you can go without going too far.
Jean Cocteau
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I have a piece of great and sad news to tell you: I am dead.
Jean Cocteau
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After the writer's death, reading his journal is like receiving a long letter.
Jean Cocteau
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Never do what a specialist can do better. Discover your own specialty. Do not despair if your specialty appears to be more delicate, a lesser thing. Make up in finesse what you lose in force.
Jean Cocteau
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Fight any instinct to be humorless, for humorlessness is the worst of all absurdities.
Jean Cocteau
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Without opium, plans, marriages and journeys appear to me just as foolish as if someone falling out of a window were to hope to make friends with the occupants of the room before which he passes.
Jean Cocteau
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The world owes its enchantment to these curious creatures and their fancies but its multiple complicity rejects them. Thistledown spirits, tragic, heartrending in their evanescence, they must go blowing headlong to perdition.
Jean Cocteau
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Understand that some of your enemies are amongst your best friends.
Jean Cocteau
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Lack of manners is the sign of a hero.
Jean Cocteau
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I know that poetry is indispensable, but to what I could not say.
Jean Cocteau
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Perhaps I know to what extent I can go too far.
Jean Cocteau
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An artist cannot speak about his art any more than a plant can discuss horticulture.
Jean Cocteau
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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.
Jean Cocteau
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The ability to laugh heartily is the sign of a healthy soul.
Jean Cocteau
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Victor Hugo was a madman who thought he was Victor Hugo
Jean Cocteau
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