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The spirit of creation is the spirit of contradiction. It is the breakthrough of appearances toward an unknown reality.
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
Toward
Creation
Spirit
Reality
Appearances
Writing
Breakthrough
Contradiction
Unknown
Appearance
More quotes by Jean Cocteau
The worst tragedy for a poet is to be admired through being misunderstood.
Jean Cocteau
And history becomes legend and legend becomes history.
Jean Cocteau
Since the day of my birth, my death began its walk. It is walking toward me, without hurrying.
Jean Cocteau
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.
Jean Cocteau
Art produces ugly things which frequently become beautiful with time.
Jean Cocteau
The prettiest dresses are worn to be taken off.
Jean Cocteau
The poet is a liar who always speaks the truth.
Jean Cocteau
True realism consists in revealing the surprising things which habit keeps covered and prevents us from seeing.
Jean Cocteau
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
Every poem is a coat of arms. It must be deciphered. How much blood, how many tears in exchange for these axes, these muzzles, these unicorns, these torches, these towers, these martlets, these seedlings of stars and these fields of blue!
Jean Cocteau
Fight any instinct to be humorless, for humorlessness is the worst of all absurdities.
Jean Cocteau
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
one should always talk well about oneself! The word spreads around and in the end, noone remembers where it started
Jean Cocteau
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
The joy of the young is to disobey
Jean Cocteau
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
Take a commonplace, clean it and polish it, light it so that it produces the same effect of youth and freshness and originality and spontaneity as it did originally, and you have done a poet's job. The rest is literature.
Jean Cocteau
Alas! I do not believe that inspiration falls from heaven. think it rather the result of a profound indolence.
Jean Cocteau
The course of a river is almost always disapproved of by the source.
Jean Cocteau
And now I have to confess the unpardonable and the scandalous. I am a happy man. And I am going to tell you the secret of my happiness. It is quite simple. I love mankind. I love love. I hate hate. I try to understand and accept.
Jean Cocteau
