Quotes by Jean Cocteau

Jean Cocteau

Jean Cocteau

French writer

Lived from: 1889 - 1963

Category: Writers (Contemporary) Country: FlagFrance

Born: 5 july 1889 Died: 11 october 1963

Quotes 21 till 36 of 36.

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  • 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
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  • Tact in audacity consists in knowing how far we may go too far.
    ― Jean Cocteau
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  • Tact is knowing how far to go too far.
    ― Jean Cocteau
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  • Take a commonplace, clean it and polish it, light it so that it produces the same effect of youth and freshness and originality and spontaneity as it did originally, and you have done a poet's job. The rest is literature.
    ― Jean Cocteau
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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.
    ― Jean Cocteau
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  • The extreme limit of wisdom -that's what the public calls madness.
    ― Jean Cocteau
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  • The greatest masterpiece in literature is only a dictionary out of order.
    ― Jean Cocteau
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  • The instinct of nearly all societies is to lock up anybody who is truly free. First, society begins by trying to beat you up. If this fails, they try to poison you. If this fails too, they finish by loading honors on your head.
    ― Jean Cocteau
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  • The joy of youth is to disobey; but the trouble is that there are no longer any orders.
    ― Jean Cocteau
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  • The Louver is a morgue; you go there to identify your friends.
    ― Jean Cocteau
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  • There is always a period when a man with a beard shaves it off. This period does not last. He returns headlong to his beard.
    ― Jean Cocteau
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  • True realism consists in revealing the surprising things which habit keeps covered and prevents us from seeing.
    ― Jean Cocteau
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  • We must believe in luck. For how else can we explain the success of those we don't like?
    ― Jean Cocteau
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  • Wealth is an inborn attitude of mind, like poverty. The pauper who has made his pile may flaunt his spoils, but cannot wear them plausibly.
    ― Jean Cocteau
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  • What the public criticizes in you, cultivate. It is you.
    ― Jean Cocteau
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  • When a work appears to be ahead of its time, it is only the time that is behind the work.
    ― Jean Cocteau
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