Wealth is an inborn attitude of mind, like poverty. The pauper who has made his pile may flaunt his spoils, but cannot wear them plausibly.
JEAN COCTEAUThe joy of the young is to disobey.
More Jean Cocteau Quotes
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I’ve always preferred mythology to history. History is truth that becomes an illusion. Mythology is an illusion that becomes reality.
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Children and lunatics cut the Gordian knot which the poet spends his life patiently trying to untie.
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I only fear the death of others. For me, true death is that of the people I love.
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Love is mainly an affair of short spasms. If these spasms disappoint us, love dies. It is very seldom that it weathers the experience and becomes friendship.
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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.
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It is difficult to live without opium after having known it because it is difficult, after knowing opium, to take earth seriously. And unless one is a saint, it is difficult to live without taking earth seriously.
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We are in a period of such individualism that one no longer speaks of disciples; one speaks of thieves.
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Film will only became an art when its materials are as inexpensive as pencil and paper.
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You have comfort. You don’t have luxury. And don’t tell me that money plays a part. The luxury I advocate has nothing to do with money. It cannot be bought. It is the reward of those who have NO Fear or Discomfort.
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I love cats because I enjoy my home; and little by little, they become its visible soul.
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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.
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I feel myself inhabited by a force or being — very little known to me. It gives the orders; I follow.
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The joy of the young is to disobey.
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I have a piece of great and sad news to tell you: I am dead.
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Fight any instinct to be humorless, for humorlessness is the worst of all absurdities.
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The ability to laugh heartily is the sign of a healthy soul.
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We shelter an angel within us. We must be the guardians of that angel.
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After you have written a thing and you reread it, there is always the temptation to fix it up, to improve it, to remove its poison, blunt its sting.
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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.
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Beauty cannot be recognized with a cursory glance.
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If a poet has a dream, it is not of becoming famous, but of being believed.
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Art is science in the flesh.
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The poet, by composing poems, uses a language that is neither dead nor living, that few people speak, and few people understand We are the servants of an unknown force that lives within us, manipulates us, and dictates this language to us.
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Since these mysteries exceed my grasp, I shall pretend to have organized them.
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When I write, I disturb. When I show a film, I disturb. When I exhibit my painting, I disturb, and I disturb if I don’t. I have a knack for disturbing.
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The only way to kill death is through photography.
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