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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
Reality
Appearances
Writing
Breakthrough
Contradiction
Unknown
Appearance
Toward
Creation
Spirit

More quotes by Jean Cocteau

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It is not I who become addicted, it is my body.
Jean Cocteau
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The actual tragedies of life bear no relation to one's preconceived ideas. In the event, one is always bewildered by their simplicity, their grandeur of design, and by that element of the bizarre which seems inherent in them.
Jean Cocteau
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I have never felt any connection with my family. There is—I must say simply—something in me that is not in my family. That was not visible in my father or mother. I do not know its origin.
Jean Cocteau
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Style is a simple way of saying complicated things.
Jean Cocteau
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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
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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.
Jean Cocteau
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True realism consists in revealing the surprising things which habit keeps covered and prevents us from seeing.
Jean Cocteau
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Every day in the mirror I watch death at work.
Jean Cocteau
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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.
Jean Cocteau
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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.
Jean Cocteau
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Beauty cannot be recognized with a cursory glance.
Jean Cocteau
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Watch yourself all your life in a mirror and you'll see Death at work like bees in a glass hive.
Jean Cocteau
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An artist cannot speak about his art any more than a plant can discuss horticulture.
Jean Cocteau
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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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The cinema is death at work.
Jean Cocteau
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Poetry, being elegance itself, cannot hope to achieve visibility... It insists on living its own life.
Jean Cocteau
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The greatest masterpiece in literature is only a dictionary out of order.
Jean Cocteau
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I feel myself inhabited by a force or being -- very little known to me. It gives the orders I follow.
Jean Cocteau
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I love cats because I enjoy my home and little by little, they become its visible soul.
Jean Cocteau
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I have a piece of great and sad news to tell you: I am dead.
Jean Cocteau