Jean Cocteau quotes - page 4

Expect neither reward nor beatitude. Return noble waves for ignoble. (Jean Cocteau)
The trouble about the Academie is that by the time they get around to electing us to a seat, we really need a bed. View quote
Jean Cocteau
A prig always finds a last refuge in responsibility. View quote
Jean Cocteau
Anything of any importance cannot help but be unrecognizable, since it bears no resemblance to anything already known. View quote
Jean Cocteau
Fight any instinct to be humorless, for humorlessness is the worst of all absurdities. View quote
Jean Cocteau
Find first, seek later. View quote
Jean Cocteau
See your disappointments as good fortune. One plan's deflation is another's inflation. View quote
Jean Cocteau
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. View quote
Jean Cocteau
Do not close the circle. Leave it open. Descartes closes the circle. Pascal leaves it open. Rousseau's triumph over the encyclopedists is to have left his circle open when they closed theirs. View quote
Jean Cocteau
There's no such thing as love; only proof of love. View quote
Jean Cocteau
Listen carefully to first criticisms made of your work. Note just what it is about your work that critics don't like - then cultivate it. That's the only part of your work that's individual and worth keeping. (Jean Cocteau)
I've always preferred mythology to history. History is truth that becomes an illusion. Mythology is an illusion that becomes reality. View quote
Jean Cocteau
If a poet has a dream, it is not of becoming famous, but of being believed. View quote
Jean Cocteau
Poetry is a religion with no hope. View quote
Jean Cocteau
The prettiest dresses are worn to be taken off. View quote
Jean Cocteau
I am burning myself up and will always do so. View quote
Jean Cocteau
All spiritual journeys are martyrdoms. View quote
Jean Cocteau
I'm not willing just to be tolerated. That wounds my love of love and of liberty. View quote
Jean Cocteau
It is excruciating to be an unbeliever with a spirit that is deeply religious. View quote
Jean Cocteau
Be yourself. The world worships the original. View quote
Jean Cocteau
I only fear the death of others. For me, true death is that of the people I love. (Jean Cocteau)
Lack of manners is the sign of a hero. View quote
Jean Cocteau
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. View quote
Jean Cocteau
Poetry, being elegance itself, cannot hope to achieve visibility. View quote
Jean Cocteau
At all costs the true world of childhood must prevail, must be restored; that world whose momentous, heroic, mysterious quality is fed on airy nothings, whose substance is so ill-fitted to withstand the brutal touch of adult inquisition. View quote
Jean Cocteau