Quote

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.

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
Men
Code
Conducted
Ethics
Capabilities
According
Imperative
Discipline
Constructed
Behavior
Ethic
Poetry
Imperatives
Secret
Capability
Categorical
Mean
Rejects
Falsification

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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.
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The ability to laugh heartily is the sign of a healthy soul.
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A prig always finds a last refuge in responsibility.
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Lack of manners is the sign of a hero.
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An original artist is unable to copy. So he has only to copy in order to be original.
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True realism consists in revealing the surprising things which habit keeps covered and prevents us from seeing.
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The runner stopped dead, lost his balance, froze in one of those violent attitudes in which the photographers petrify living reality.
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My only politics have been friendship.
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Without opium, plans, marriages and journeys appear to me just as foolish as if someone falling out of a window were to hope to make friends with the occupants of the room before which he passes.
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I succeeded in bewitching a fair number and in being intoxicated with my mistakes.
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Tact in audacity is knowing how far you can go without going too far.
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one should always talk well about oneself! The word spreads around and in the end, noone remembers where it started
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The composer opens the cage door for arithmetic, the draftsman gives geometry its freedom.
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The poet never asks for admiration he wants to be believed.
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The poet is a liar who always speaks the truth.
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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.
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The course of a river is almost always disapproved of by the source.
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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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Understand that some of your enemies are amongst your best friends.
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Mirrors should reflect a little before throwing back images.
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