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

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
Poetry is a religion with no hope.
JEAN COCTEAU

Hope One Liner Poet Poetry Religion
Everything one does in life, even love, occurs in an express train racing toward death. To smoke opium is to get out of the train while it is still moving. It is to concern oneself with something other than life or death.
JEAN COCTEAU

Death Expression Life Love Oneself Training
I have not looked at a newspaper in twenty years; if one is brought into the room, I flee. This is not because I am indifferent but because one cannot follow every road.
JEAN COCTEAU

Difference Follow Myself Road Room
Youth is certain what it rejects before it knows what it will accept.
JEAN COCTEAU

Acceptance Rejection Youth
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
Anything of any importance cannot help but be unrecognizable, since it bears no resemblance to anything already known.
JEAN COCTEAU

Help Important Recognition
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
Youth can only assert itself through the conviction that its ventures surpass all others and resemble nothing.
JEAN COCTEAU

Action Appearance Youth
Art is science in the flesh.
JEAN COCTEAU

Art Body One Liner Science
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
Since these mysteries exceed my grasp, I shall pretend to have organized them.
JEAN COCTEAU

Myself Mystery Organization Pretend
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.
JEAN COCTEAU

Disappoint Experience Friendship Love Short
Nothing ever gets anywhere. The earth keeps turning round and gets nowhere. The moment is the only thing that counts.
JEAN COCTEAU

Count Earth Moment
The job of the poet (a job which can’t be learned) consists of placing those objects of the visible world which have become invisible due to the glue of habit, in an unusual position which strikes the soul and gives them a tragic force.
JEAN COCTEAU

Force Habit Learning Object Place Poet Position Soul Tragedy Visible World
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
It is not I who become addicted, it is my body.
JEAN COCTEAU

Addiction Body Oneself
Continue reading Proust. His magnificent intelligence is particularly fond of describing stupidity. Which is ultimately exhausting.
JEAN COCTEAU

Himself Reading Stupidity
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
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
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
There’s no such thing as love; only proof of love.
JEAN COCTEAU

Deep Evidence Love Philosophy
The prettiest dresses are worn to be taken off.
JEAN COCTEAU

Beautiful Clothes Sex
The joy of the young is to disobey.
JEAN COCTEAU

Joy Obey One Liner Young
Picasso said that everything is a miracle, that it’s a miracle that we don’t dissolve in our baths.
JEAN COCTEAU

Funny Magic Miracle Ourselves Water
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.
JEAN COCTEAU

Display Disturb Myself Paint Writing
I only fear the death of others. For me, true death is that of the people I love.
JEAN COCTEAU

Death Fear Love Myself People

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

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

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