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The joy of the young is to disobey.

Jean Cocteau

And now I have to confess the unpardonable and the scandalous. I am a happy man. And I am going to tell you the secret of my happiness. It is quite simple. I love mankind. I love love. I hate hate. I try to understand and accept.
JEAN COCTEAU

Acceptance Confession Happiness Hate Quite Secret Simplicity Try Understand
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

Appearance Better Delicate Discover Force Lose Yourself
I’ve always preferred mythology to history. History is truth that becomes an illusion. Mythology is an illusion that becomes reality.
JEAN COCTEAU

Deep Difference History Illusion Myth Mythology Perspective Reality Truth
Poetry is a religion without hope. The poet exhausts himself in its service, knowing that, in the long run, a masterpiece is nothing but the performance of a trained dog on very shaky ground.
JEAN COCTEAU

Animal Dog Hope Performance Poetry Religion Service Training
Mirrors should reflect a little before throwing back images.
JEAN COCTEAU

Image Mirror Reflection
There’s no such thing as love; only proof of love.
JEAN COCTEAU

Deep Evidence Love Philosophy
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

Character Dreams Friendship Habit Live Regret Stranger Surprise
Poetry is indispensable – if I only knew what for.
JEAN COCTEAU

Myself Poetry Reason
Such is the role of poetry. It unveils, in the strict sense of the word. It lays bare, under a light which shakes off torpor, the surprising things which surround us and which our senses record mechanically.
JEAN COCTEAU

Light Ourselves Poetry Record Role Strict Surprise Word
After the writer’s death, reading his journal is like receiving a long letter.
JEAN COCTEAU

Death Journal Receive Writing
Here I am trying to live, or rather, I am trying to teach the death within me how to live.
JEAN COCTEAU

Death Live Myself Teaching Try
Since these mysteries exceed my grasp, I shall pretend to have organized them.
JEAN COCTEAU

Myself Mystery Organization Pretend
The extreme limit of wisdom, that’s what the public calls madness.
JEAN COCTEAU

Call Limitation Public Wisdom
Man seeks to escape himself in myth, and does so by any means at his disposal. Drugs, alcohol, or lies. Unable to withdraw into himself, he disguises himself. Lies and inaccuracy give him a few moments of comfort.
JEAN COCTEAU

Alcohol Comfortable Drugs Escape Lying Man Moments Myth Seek
Cultivate everything the critics hated in your first work – that’s what makes you unique.
JEAN COCTEAU

Criticism Cultivate Hate Unique Work Yourself
French people are Italian people in a bad mood.
JEAN COCTEAU

Attitude Bad Identity Mood People Personality

The joy of the young is to disobey.

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The joy of the young is to disobey.

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