Jean Cocteau quotes

Tact in audacity is knowing how far you can go without going too far. (Jean Cocteau)
We must believe in luck. For how else can we explain the success of those we don't like?
Jean Cocteau
I love cats because I enjoy my home; and little by little, they become its visible soul.
Jean Cocteau
The greatest masterpiece of literature is only a dictionary out of order.
Jean Cocteau
Living is a horizontal fall.
Jean Cocteau
Art is science made flesh.
Jean Cocteau
You've never seen death? Look in the mirror every day and you will see it like bees working in a glass hive.
Jean Cocteau
Style is a simple way of saying complicated things.
Jean Cocteau
An artist cannot speak about his art any more than a plant can discuss horticulture.
Jean Cocteau
The worst tragedy for a poet is to be admired through being misunderstood.
Jean Cocteau
In Paris, everybody wants to be an actor; nobody is content to be a spectator. (Jean Cocteau)
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, the finish by loading honors on your head.
Jean Cocteau
Mystery has its own mysteries, and there are gods above gods. We have ours, they have theirs. That is what's known as infinity.
Jean Cocteau
Since the day of my birth, my death began its walk. It is walking toward me, without hurrying.
Jean Cocteau
Victor Hugo was a madman who thought he was Vistor Hugo.
Jean Cocteau
What the public criticizes in you, cultivate. It is you.
Jean Cocteau
A true poet does not bother to be poetical. Nor does a nursery gardener scent his roses.
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
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.
Jean Cocteau
Commissions suit me. They set limits. Jean Marais dared me to write play in which he would not speak in the first act, would weep for joy in the second and in the last would fall backward down a flight of stairs.
Jean Cocteau
If it has to choose who is to be crucified, the crowd will always save Barabbas. (Jean Cocteau)
An original artist is unable to copy. So he has only to copy in order to be original.
Jean Cocteau
All good music resembles something. Good music stirs by its mysterious resemblance to the objects and feelings which motivated it.
Jean Cocteau
True realism consists in revealing the surprising things which habit keeps covered and prevents us from seeing.
Jean Cocteau
One must be a living man and a posthumous artist.
Jean Cocteau