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The ultimate politeness in art consists of speaking only to those who are able to uncover and measure its relationships. Anything else is symbolic, and symbolism is merely transcendental imagery.
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
Relationships
Symbolism
Merely
Transcendental
Ultimate
Politeness
Art
Imagery
Else
Symbolic
Anything
Consists
Able
Measure
Speaking
Uncover
More quotes by Jean Cocteau
Alas! I do not believe that inspiration falls from heaven. think it rather the result of a profound indolence.
Jean Cocteau
I love cats because I enjoy my home and little by little, they become its visible soul.
Jean Cocteau
Since it's now fashionable to laugh at the conservative French Academy, I have remained a rebel by joining it.
Jean Cocteau
I have a piece of great and sad news to tell you: I am dead.
Jean Cocteau
Since the day of my birth, my death began its walk. It is walking toward me, without hurrying.
Jean Cocteau
The spirit of creation is the spirit of contradiction. It is the breakthrough of appearances toward an unknown reality.
Jean Cocteau
The hot hall full of painted girls and American soldiers is a saloon in some Western film. This noise drenches us, wakens us to do something else. It shows us a lost path.
Jean Cocteau
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
Mirrors should reflect a little before throwing back images.
Jean Cocteau
Such is the role of poetry. It unveils, in the strict sense of the word. It lays bare, under a light which shakes off torpor, the surprising things which surround us and which our senses record mechanically.
Jean Cocteau
Every day in the mirror I watch death at work.
Jean Cocteau
Fight any instinct to be humorless, for humorlessness is the worst of all absurdities.
Jean Cocteau
History is a combination of reality and lies. The reality of History becomes a lie. The unreality of the fable becomes the truth.
Jean Cocteau
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
Youth is certain what it rejects before it knows what it will accept.
Jean Cocteau
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
The speed of a runaway horse counts for nothing.
Jean Cocteau
Youth can only assert itself through the conviction that its ventures surpass all others and resemble nothing.
Jean Cocteau
Compromise yourself. Obscure your own trail.
Jean Cocteau
Anything of any importance cannot help but be unrecognizable, since it bears no resemblance to anything already known.
Jean Cocteau
