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One must be a living man and a posthumous artist.

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
Posthumous
Living
Artist
Art
Must
Men

More quotes by Jean Cocteau

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one should always talk well about oneself! The word spreads around and in the end, noone remembers where it started
Jean Cocteau
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Look out! Be on your guard, because alone of all the arts, music moves all around you.
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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!
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The art of genius is knowing how far out is too far.
Jean Cocteau
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It is not inspiration it is expiration.
Jean Cocteau
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May the devil himself splatter you with dung.
Jean Cocteau
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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
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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.
Jean Cocteau
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It is not I who become addicted, it is my body.
Jean Cocteau
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Youth can only assert itself through the conviction that its ventures surpass all others and resemble nothing.
Jean Cocteau
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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.
Jean Cocteau
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What is style? For many people, a very complicated way of saying very simple things. According to us, a very simple way of saying very complicated things.
Jean Cocteau
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Understand that some of your enemies are amongst your best friends.
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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The public only takes up yesterday as a stick to beat today.
Jean Cocteau
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The only work of art which succeeds is that which fails.
Jean Cocteau
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My only politics have been friendship.
Jean Cocteau
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Every day in the mirror I watch death at work.
Jean Cocteau
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Inspiration arrived as a result of profound indolence... I awoke with a start and witnessed as from a seat in a theatre, three acts of a potentially awesome play.
Jean Cocteau
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Stupidity is always astounding, no matter how often one encounters it.
Jean Cocteau