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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

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

More quotes by Jean Cocteau

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The art of genius is knowing how far out is too far.
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Poets don't draw. They unravel their handwriting and then tie it up again, but differently.
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After the writer's death, reading his journal is like receiving a long letter.
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Mirrors should reflect a little before throwing back images.
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Statues to great men are made of the stones thrown at them in their lifetime.
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My little Renoirs. Matisse describes having seen Renoir make these tiny canvases. When he had finished working, he would use up the color left in his brushes on them.
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I have a piece of great and sad news to tell you: I am dead.
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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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The ability to laugh heartily is the sign of a healthy soul.
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Anything of any importance cannot help but be unrecognizable, since it bears no resemblance to anything already known.
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I know that poetry is indispensable, but to what I could not say.
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Art is not a pastime but a priesthood.
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It seems to me that invisibility is the required provision of elegance. Elegance ceases to exist when it is noticed.
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Youth is certain what it rejects before it knows what it will accept.
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I succeeded in bewitching a fair number and in being intoxicated with my mistakes.
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The joy of youth is to disobey but the trouble is that there are no longer any orders.
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How our old friend [Michelangelo] of the Sistine would have loved to photograph his workers, perched on the fragile planks. Dali was right to say Leonardo only worked from photographs.
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The public only takes up yesterday as a stick to beat today.
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You are always concentrated on the inner thing. The moment one becomes aware of the crowd, performs for the crowd, it is spectacle.
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