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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.

Jean Cocteau

If a poet has a dream, it is not of becoming famous, but of being believed.
JEAN COCTEAU

Believe Deep Dreams Famous Poet
Lying is the only art form that the public sanctions and instinctively prefers to reality.
JEAN COCTEAU

Art Lying Preference Reality
We shelter an angel within us. We must be the guardians of that angel.
JEAN COCTEAU

Angel Home Protection Shelter
Youth is certain what it rejects before it knows what it will accept.
JEAN COCTEAU

Acceptance Rejection Youth
The artist is a kind of prison from which the works of art escape.
JEAN COCTEAU

Artist Escape Kind Prison Work
Mirrors should think longer before they reflect.
JEAN COCTEAU

Deep Mirror One Liner Reflection Thinking
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
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 dead drug leaves a ghost behind. At certain hours it haunts the house.
JEAN COCTEAU

Death Drugs Ghost Home
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
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
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
A true photographer is as rare as a true poet or a true painter.
JEAN COCTEAU

Artist Paint Photograph Poet Rare True
I love cats because I enjoy my home; and little by little, they become its visible soul.
JEAN COCTEAU

Animal Cat Enjoyment Home Love Myself Soul Visible
I feel myself inhabited by a force or being — very little known to me. It gives the orders; I follow.
JEAN COCTEAU

Control Feeling Myself
Youth can only assert itself through the conviction that its ventures surpass all others and resemble nothing.
JEAN COCTEAU

Action Appearance Youth

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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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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Popular Authors

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