Quote

Appreciation of art is a moral erection, otherwise mere dilettantism.

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
Critics
Otherwise
Mere
Moral
Art
Dilettantism
Erection
Appreciation

More quotes by Jean Cocteau

Image
In exiling myself I am not exiling a monster, but a man whom society will not allow to live, since it considers one of the mysterious cogs in God's masterpiece to be a mistake.
Jean Cocteau
Image
All good music resembles something. Good music stirs by its mysterious resemblance to the objects and feelings which motivated it.
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
Youth can only assert itself through the conviction that its ventures surpass all others and resemble nothing.
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 is science made flesh.
Jean Cocteau
Image
Expect neither reward nor beatitude. Return noble waves for ignoble.
Jean Cocteau
Image
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.
Jean Cocteau
Image
I feel myself inhabited by a force or being -- very little known to me. It gives the orders I follow.
Jean Cocteau
Image
In Paris, everybody wants to be an actor nobody is content to be a spectator.
Jean Cocteau
Image
Poets don't draw. They unravel their handwriting and then tie it up again, but differently.
Jean Cocteau
Image
What uniform can I wear to hide my heavy heart? It is too heavy. It will always show. Jacques felt himself growing gloomy again. He was well aware that to live on earth a man must follow its fashions, and hearts were no longer worn.
Jean Cocteau
Image
A film is a petrified fountain of thought.
Jean Cocteau
Image
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
Image
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
Image
Childhood knows what it wants - to leave childhood behind.
Jean Cocteau
Image
I have a piece of great and sad news to tell you: I am dead.
Jean Cocteau
Image
The worst tragedy for a poet is to be admired through being misunderstood.
Jean Cocteau
Image
Enough of clouds, waves, aquariums, water-sprites and nocturnal scents what we need is music of the earth, everyday music..music one can live in like a house.
Jean Cocteau
Image
The poet doesn't invent. He listens.
Jean Cocteau