black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

An original artist is unable to copy. So he has only to copy in order to be original.

Jean Cocteau

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

Criticism Cultivate Hate Unique Work Yourself
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
The artist is a kind of prison from which the works of art escape.
JEAN COCTEAU

Artist Escape Kind Prison Work
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
An original artist is unable to copy. So he has only to copy in order to be original.
JEAN COCTEAU

Artist Copy Job Order Original
The reward of art is not fame or success but intoxication: that is why so many bad artists are unable to give it up.
JEAN COCTEAU

Art Artist Bad Fame Give Up Reward Success
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

Art Beautiful Fashion Hands Production Time Ugly
Children and lunatics cut the Gordian knot which the poet spends his life patiently trying to untie.
JEAN COCTEAU

Children Mad Patience Poet Try
Every day in the mirror I watch death at work.
JEAN COCTEAU

Day Death Mirror Myself Work
After the writer’s death, reading his journal is like receiving a long letter.
JEAN COCTEAU

Death Journal Receive Writing
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
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
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
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
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
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.
JEAN COCTEAU

Difficult Earth Live Serious

An original artist is unable to copy. So he has only to copy in order to be original.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

An original artist is unable to copy. So he has only to copy in order to be original.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Jean Cocteau Quotes