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Mirrors should think longer before they reflect.

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
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
Poetry is indispensable – if I only knew what for.
JEAN COCTEAU

Myself Poetry Reason
You have comfort. You don’t have luxury. And don’t tell me that money plays a part. The luxury I advocate has nothing to do with money. It cannot be bought. It is the reward of those who have NO Fear or Discomfort.
JEAN COCTEAU

Comfortable Fear Luxury Money Play Reward
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
If it has to choose who is to be crucified, the crowd will always save Barabbas.
JEAN COCTEAU

Choice Death Kill Option Save Torture
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
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
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
Here I am trying to live, or rather, I am trying to teach the death within me how to live.
JEAN COCTEAU

Death Live Myself Teaching Try
Not only should you not accept a prize. You should not try to deserve one either.
JEAN COCTEAU

Acceptance Deserve Oneself Reward Yourself
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
What the public criticizes in you, cultivate. It is you.
JEAN COCTEAU

Criticism Cultivate Hate Inspirational Motivational Public Yourself
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
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
Elegance ceases to exist when it is noticed.
JEAN COCTEAU

Elegant Existence Notice

Mirrors should think longer before they reflect.

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Mirrors should think longer before they reflect.

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