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The greatest masterpiece in literature is only a dictionary out of order.

Jean Cocteau

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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
Greatest
Literature
Order
Dictionary
Masterpiece

More quotes by Jean Cocteau

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The composer opens the cage door for arithmetic, the draftsman gives geometry its freedom.
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Alas! I do not believe that inspiration falls from heaven. think it rather the result of a profound indolence.
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Appreciation of art is a moral erection, otherwise mere dilettantism.
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The ability to laugh heartily is the sign of a healthy soul.
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Mirrors should think longer before they reflect.
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The Louvre is a morgue you go there to identify your friends.
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Poetry is a religion without hope. The poet exhausts himself in its service, knowing that, in the long run, a masterpiece is nothing but the performance of a trained dog on very shaky ground.
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Youth can only assert itself through the conviction that its ventures surpass all others and resemble nothing.
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Whatever the world condemns you for, make it your own. It is yourself.
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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.
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The poet Paul Éluard says that to understand my film version of Beauty and the Beast, you must love your dog more than your car.
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The preservation of friendship is seen as opportunism. You are required to be in one camp or the other. You are enjoined to cut your heartstrings if they extend across the barricade.
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Listen carefully to first criticisms made of your work. Note just what it is about your work that critics don't like - then cultivate it. That's the only part of your work that's individual and worth keeping.
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Poetry is indispensable - if I only knew what for.
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The worst tragedy for a poet is to be admired through being misunderstood.
Jean Cocteau
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Compromise yourself. Obscure your own trail.
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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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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
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I succeeded in bewitching a fair number and in being intoxicated with my mistakes.
Jean Cocteau
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The only work of art which succeeds is that which fails.
Jean Cocteau