Quote

The worst tragedy for a poet is to be admired through being misunderstood.

Jean Cocteau

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Jean Cocteau
Age: 74 †
Born: 1889
Born: July 5
Died: 1963
Died: October 11
Actor
Composer
Designer
Film Director
Illustrator
Librettist
Novelist
Painter
Photographer
Playwright
Poet
Postage Stamp Designer
Prosaist
Clément Eugène Jean Pierre Cocteau
Zhan Kokto
Eugène Jean Maurice Cocteau
Eugene Jean Maurice Cocteau
Jean Cocteau
Worst
Admired
Misunderstood
Poetic
Tragedy
Poet

More quotes by Jean Cocteau

Image
Since the day of my birth, my death began its walk. It is walking toward me, without hurrying.
Jean Cocteau
Image
I succeeded in bewitching a fair number and in being intoxicated with my mistakes.
Jean Cocteau
Image
Cultivate everything the critics hated in your first work - that's what makes you unique.
Jean Cocteau
Image
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
Image
Celebrity: I picture myself as a marble bust with legs to run everywhere.
Jean Cocteau
Image
Tact in audacity is knowing how far you can go without going too far.
Jean Cocteau
Image
A film is a petrified fountain of thought.
Jean Cocteau
Image
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
Image
Watch yourself all your life in a mirror and you'll see Death at work like bees in a glass hive.
Jean Cocteau
Image
In Paris, everybody wants to be an actor nobody is content to be a spectator.
Jean Cocteau
Image
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
Image
The joy of the young is to disobey
Jean Cocteau
Image
Such is the role of poetry. It unveils, in the strict sense of the word. It lays bare, under a light which shakes off torpor, the surprising things which surround us and which our senses record mechanically.
Jean Cocteau
Image
Youth can only assert itself through the conviction that its ventures surpass all others and resemble nothing.
Jean Cocteau
Image
Poetry is a religion without hope, but its martyrs guarantee the eternal truth of its dogma.
Jean Cocteau
Image
You have comfort. You don't have luxury. And don't tell me that money plays a part. The luxury I advocate has nothing to do with money. It cannot be bought. It is the reward of those who have NO Fear or Discomfort.
Jean Cocteau
Image
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
Image
Compromise yourself. Obscure your own trail.
Jean Cocteau
Image
I have lost my seven best friends, which is to say God has had mercy on me seven times without realizing it. He lent a friendship, took it from me, sent me another.
Jean Cocteau
Image
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