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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

The poet is a liar who always speaks the truth.
JEAN COCTEAU

Deep Lying One Liner Poet Talk Truth
Youth can only assert itself through the conviction that its ventures surpass all others and resemble nothing.
JEAN COCTEAU

Action Appearance Youth
Art is not a pastime but a priesthood.
JEAN COCTEAU

Art Past Religious Time
Fight any instinct to be humorless, for humorlessness is the worst of all absurdities.
JEAN COCTEAU

Fight Humor Intuition Mad Worst
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
Continue reading Proust. His magnificent intelligence is particularly fond of describing stupidity. Which is ultimately exhausting.
JEAN COCTEAU

Himself Reading Stupidity
Mirrors should think longer before they reflect.
JEAN COCTEAU

Deep Mirror One Liner Reflection Thinking
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
Every day in the mirror I watch death at work.
JEAN COCTEAU

Day Death Mirror Myself Work
Cultivate everything the critics hated in your first work – that’s what makes you unique.
JEAN COCTEAU

Criticism Cultivate Hate Unique Work Yourself
I have lost my seven best friends, which is to say God has had mercy on me seven times without realizing it. He lent a friendship, took it from me, sent me another.
JEAN COCTEAU

Best Friendship God Lost Mercy Myself
My method is simple: not to bother about poetry. It must come of its own accord. Merely whispering its name drives it away.
JEAN COCTEAU

Drive Myself Name Poetry Simplicity Wait
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
Silence moves faster when it’s going backward.
JEAN COCTEAU

Fast Move One Liner Philosophy Silence
One must not mistake majority for truth.
JEAN COCTEAU

Deep Mistake One Liner Oneself Truth
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

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

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

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Popular Authors

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