Jean Cocteau quotes - page 6

Beauty is always the result of an accident. Of a violent lapse between acquired habits and those yet to be acquired. (Jean Cocteau)
It insists on living its own life. It becomes the pretext for a thousand misunderstandings that go by the name of glory...
Jean Cocteau
What is line? It is life. A line must live at each point along its course in such a way that the artist's presence makes itself felt above that of the model.
Jean Cocteau
A little too much is just enough for me.
Jean Cocteau
Man seeks to escape himself in myth, and does so by any means at his disposal... unnable to withdraw into himself, he disguises himself.
Jean Cocteau
Originality consists in trying to be like everybody else - and failing.
Jean Cocteau
Asking an artist to talk about his work is like asking a plant to discuss horticulture.
Jean Cocteau
Whatever the public blames you for, cultivate it; it is yourself.
Jean Cocteau
Never do what a specialist can do better. Discover your own specialty. Do not despair if your specialty appears to be more delicate, a lesser thing. Make up in finesse what you lose in force.
Jean Cocteau
Youth is certain what it rejects before it knows what it will accept.
Jean Cocteau
The public only takes up yesterday as a stick to beat today. (Jean Cocteau)
A car can massage organs which no masseur can reach. It is the one remedy for the disorders of the great sympathetic nervous system.
Jean Cocteau
The composer opens the cage door for arithmetic, the draftsman gives geometry its freedom.
Jean Cocteau
I know that poetry is indispensable, but to what I could not say.
Jean Cocteau
Enough of clouds, waves, aquariums, water-sprites and nocturnal scents what we need is music of the earth, everyday music...music one can live in like a house.
Jean Cocteau
Beauty is always the result of an accident. Of a violent lapse between acquired habits and those yet to be acquired. It baffles and disgusts. It may even horrify. Once the new habit has been acquired, the accident ceases to be an accident. It becomes classical and loses its shock value.
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. This personal morality may appear to be immorality itself in the eyes of those who lie to themselves, or who live a life of confusion, in such a manner that, for them, a lie becomes the truth, and our truth becomes a lie...
Jean Cocteau