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Elegance ceases to exist when it is noticed.

Jean Cocteau

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
Do as the beautiful woman: see to your figure and your petticoats. Though, of course, I am not speaking literally.
JEAN COCTEAU

Beautiful Myself See Talk Woman
Appreciation of art is a moral erection, otherwise mere dilettantism.
JEAN COCTEAU

Art Moral Praise
It is excruciating to be an unbeliever with a spirit that is deeply religious.
JEAN COCTEAU

Believe Deep Religious Spirit
We must believe in luck. For how else can we explain the success of those we don’t like?
JEAN COCTEAU

Believe Explanation Luck
Children and lunatics cut the Gordian knot which the poet spends his life patiently trying to untie.
JEAN COCTEAU

Children Mad Patience Poet Try
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
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
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
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
I know that poetry is indispensable, but to what I could not say.
JEAN COCTEAU

Myself Poetry Talk
Living is a horizontal fall.
JEAN COCTEAU

Fall Live One Liner Perspective
Anything of any importance cannot help but be unrecognizable, since it bears no resemblance to anything already known.
JEAN COCTEAU

Help Important Recognition
Wealth is an inborn attitude of mind, like poverty. The pauper who has made his pile may flaunt his spoils, but cannot wear them plausibly.
JEAN COCTEAU

Attitude Born Himself Mindset Wealth
There’s no such thing as love; only proof of love.
JEAN COCTEAU

Deep Evidence Love Philosophy
Art is not a pastime but a priesthood.
JEAN COCTEAU

Art Past Religious Time
Art is a marriage of the conscious and the unconscious.
JEAN COCTEAU

Art Conscious Deep Marriage Philosophy Spiritual
Whatever the world condemns you for, make it your own. It is yourself.
JEAN COCTEAU

Creativity Inspirational Motivational World Yourself
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
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
If a poet has a dream, it is not of becoming famous, but of being believed.
JEAN COCTEAU

Believe Deep Dreams Famous Poet
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 indispensable – if I only knew what for.
JEAN COCTEAU

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

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

Art Body One Liner Science

Elegance ceases to exist when it is noticed.

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Elegance ceases to exist when it is noticed.

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