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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.

Jean Cocteau

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.
JEAN COCTEAU

Care Criticism Listening Work Yourself
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 COCTEAU

Attitude Born Himself Mindset Wealth
Mystery has its own mysteries, and there are gods above gods. We have ours, they have theirs. That is what’s known as infinity.
JEAN COCTEAU

Forever God Infinity Mystery Ourselves
When a work appears to be ahead of its time, it is only the time that is behind the work.
JEAN COCTEAU

Appearance Deep Perspective Time Work
We are in a period of such individualism that one no longer speaks of disciples; one speaks of thieves.
JEAN COCTEAU

Discipline Oneself Period Talk Theft
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.
JEAN COCTEAU

Poison Reading Remove Temptation Writing Yourself
Film will only became an art when its materials are as inexpensive as pencil and paper.
JEAN COCTEAU

Artist Cost Material Money Movie
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
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
All good music resembles something. Good music stirs by its mysterious resemblance to the objects and feelings which motivated it.
JEAN COCTEAU

Feeling Goodness Motivational Music Mystery Object
Every day in the mirror I watch death at work.
JEAN COCTEAU

Day Death Mirror Myself Work
We shelter an angel within us. We must be the guardians of that angel.
JEAN COCTEAU

Angel Home Protection Shelter
You’ve never seen death? Look in the mirror every day and you will see it like bees working in a glass hive.
JEAN COCTEAU

Death Mirror See Yourself
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.
JEAN COCTEAU

Creation Force Himself Language Live Manipulation People Poem Poet Understand
Poetry, being elegance itself, cannot hope to achieve visibility… It insists on living its own life.
JEAN COCTEAU

Achievement Elegant Hope Life Live Poetry
Cultivate everything the critics hated in your first work – that’s what makes you unique.
JEAN COCTEAU

Criticism Cultivate Hate Unique Work Yourself

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.

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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.

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Popular Authors

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