Jean Cocteau Quotes

“A little too much is just enough for me.”

“A man's truest self realizations might require him, above all, to learn to close his eyes: to let himself be taken unawares, to follow his dark angel, to risk his illegal instincts.”

“A true poet does not bother to be poetical. Nor does a nursery gardener scent his roses.”

“All good music resembles something. Good music stirs by its mysterious resemblance to the objects and feelings which motivated it.”

“All spiritual journeys are martyrdoms.”

“An artist cannot speak about his art anymore than a plant can discuss horticulture.”

“An original artist is unable to copy. So he has only to copy in order to be original.”

“Art is a marriage of the conscious and the unconscious.”

“Art is science made clear.”

“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.”

“Be yourself. The world worships the original.”

“Catastrophe, riots, factories blowing up, armies in flight, flood – the ear can detect a whole apocalypse in the starry night of the human body.”

“Every poem is a coat of arms. It must be deciphered. How much blood, how many tears in exchange for these axes, these muzzles, these unicorns, these torches, these towers, these martlets, these seedlings of stars and these fields of blue!”

“I am a lie that always speaks the truth.”

“I am burning myself up and will always do so.”

“I believe in luck: how else can you explain the success of those you dislike?”

“I love cats because I enjoy my home; and little by little, they become its visible soul.”

“I only fear the death of others. For me, true death is that of the people I love.”

“I've always preferred mythology to history. History is truth that becomes an illusion. Mythology is an illusion that becomes reality.”

“If a poet has a dream, it is not of becoming famous, but of being believed.”

“It is excruciating to be an unbeliever with a spirit that is deeply religious.”

“It's perfectly normal that extraordinary things happen to me. I'm an exceptional person. Oh, don't think I'm boasting. I mean to say that, unfortunately, I'm exceptional and that, unfortunately, I can't live by the rules. I must make my own.”

“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.”

“May the devil himself splatter you with dung.”

“Mirrors should think longer before they reflect.”

“Mystery has its own mysteries, and there are gods above gods. We have ours, they have theirs. That is what's known as infinity.”

“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.”

“One should always talk well about oneself! The word spreads around and in the end, noone remembers where it started.”

“Poetry, being elegance itself, cannot hope to achieve visibility. It insists on living its own life.”

“Statues to great men are made of the stones thrown at them in their lifetime.”