Jean Cocteau Quotes, Thoughts and images

Mirrors should think longer before they reflect.

Style is a simple way of saying complicated things.

One must not mistake majority for truth.

There's no such thing as love; only proof of love.

The ability to laugh heartily is the sign of a healthy soul.

The only way to kill death is through photography.

Art is a marriage of the conscious and the unconscious.

Poetry is a religion with no hope.

We shelter an angel within us. We must be the guardians of that angel.

French people are Italian people in a bad mood.

I know that poetry is indispensable, but to what I could not say.

What the public criticizes in you, cultivate. It is you.

Youth is certain what it rejects before it knows what it will accept.

An artist cannot speak about his art any more than a plant can discuss horticulture.

The public only takes up yesterday as a stick to beat today.

Tact in audacity is knowing how far you can go without going too far.

Beauty cannot be recognized with a cursory glance.

Not only should you not accept a prize. You should not try to deserve one either.

I have seafoam in my veins, I understand the language of waves.

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

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

Lying is the only art form that the public sanctions and instinctively prefers to reality.

The poet is a liar who always speaks the truth.

Art is not a pastime but a priesthood.

Appreciation of art is a moral erection, otherwise mere dilettantism.

If it has to choose who is to be crucified, the crowd will always save Barabbas.

Whatever the world condemns you for, make it your own. It is yourself.

Since the day of my birth, my death began its walk. It is walking toward me, without hurrying.

The speed of a runaway horse counts for nothing.

The extreme limit of wisdom, that's what the public calls madness.

The eyes of the dead are closed gently; we also have to open gently the eyes of the living.

My only politics have been friendship.

Every day in the mirror I watch death at work.

Whatever the public blames you for, cultivate it; it is yourself.