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It seems to me that invisibility is the required provision of elegance. Elegance ceases to exist when it is noticed.

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
Noticed
Required
Cease
Exist
Seems
Invisibility
Ceases
Provision
Elegance

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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.
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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.
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Poetry, being elegance itself, cannot hope to achieve visibility... It insists on living its own life.
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Emotion resulting from a work of art is only of value when it is not obtained by sentimental blackmail.
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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.
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Poetry is a religion without hope, but its martyrs guarantee the eternal truth of its dogma.
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Poetry is an ethic. By ethic I mean a secret code of behavior, a discipline constructed and conducted according to the capabilities of a man who rejects the falsifications of the categorical imperative.
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I love cats because I enjoy my home and little by little, they become its visible soul.
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My only politics have been friendship.
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What uniform can I wear to hide my heavy heart? It is too heavy. It will always show.
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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.
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See your disappointments as good fortune. One plan's deflation is another's inflation.
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I feel myself inhabited by a force or being -- very little known to me. It gives the orders I follow.
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French people are Italian people in a bad mood.
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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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Art is not a pastime but a priesthood.
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One must be a living man and a posthumous artist.
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I am burning myself up and will always do so.
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The speed of a runaway horse counts for nothing.
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