Quote

A man's truest self realizations might require him, above all, to learn to close his eyes: to let himself be taken unawares, to follow his dark angel, to risk his illegal instincts.

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
Dark
Realization
Eye
Instinct
Learn
Angel
Realizations
Might
Follow
Unawares
Self
Close
Truest
Men
Risk
Instincts
Eyes
Require
Taken
Illegal

More quotes by Jean Cocteau

Image
The cinema is death at work.
Jean Cocteau
Image
Everything one does in life, even love, occurs in an express train racing toward death. To smoke opium is to get out of the train while it is still moving. It is to concern oneself with something other than life or death.
Jean Cocteau
Image
The art of genius is knowing how far out is too far.
Jean Cocteau
Image
History is a combination of reality and lies. The reality of History becomes a lie. The unreality of the fable becomes the truth.
Jean Cocteau
Image
Anything of any importance cannot help but be unrecognizable, since it bears no resemblance to anything already known.
Jean Cocteau
Image
Art produces ugly things which frequently become beautiful with time.
Jean Cocteau
Image
Style is a simple way of saying complicated things.
Jean Cocteau
Image
I succeeded in bewitching a fair number and in being intoxicated with my mistakes.
Jean Cocteau
Image
Perhaps I know to what extent I can go too far.
Jean Cocteau
Image
Youth can only assert itself through the conviction that its ventures surpass all others and resemble nothing.
Jean Cocteau
Image
Appreciation of art is a moral erection, otherwise mere dilettantism.
Jean Cocteau
Image
After the writer's death, reading his journal is like receiving a long letter.
Jean Cocteau
Image
Film will only became an art when its materials are as inexpensive as pencil and paper.
Jean Cocteau
Image
At all costs the true world of childhood must prevail, must be restored that world whose momentous, heroic, mysterious quality is fed on airy nothings, whose substance is so ill-fitted to withstand the brutal touch of adult inquisition.
Jean Cocteau
Image
Art is not a pastime but a priesthood.
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
The poet never asks for admiration he wants to be believed.
Jean Cocteau
Image
I know that poetry is indispensable, but to what I could not say.
Jean Cocteau
Image
In Paris, everybody wants to be an actor nobody is content to be a spectator.
Jean Cocteau
Image
Fight any instinct to be humorless, for humorlessness is the worst of all absurdities.
Jean Cocteau