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Fight any instinct to be humorless, for humorlessness is the worst of all absurdities.

Jean Cocteau

If it has to choose who is to be crucified, the crowd will always save Barabbas.
JEAN COCTEAU

Choice Death Kill Option Save Torture
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
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
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
The artist is a kind of prison from which the works of art escape.
JEAN COCTEAU

Artist Escape Kind Prison Work
When a work appears to be ahead of its time, it is only the time that is behind the work.
JEAN COCTEAU

Appearance Deep Perspective Time Work
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
Poetry is a religion without hope. The poet exhausts himself in its service, knowing that, in the long run, a masterpiece is nothing but the performance of a trained dog on very shaky ground.
JEAN COCTEAU

Animal Dog Hope Performance Poetry Religion Service Training
Whatever the world condemns you for, make it your own. It is yourself.
JEAN COCTEAU

Creativity Inspirational Motivational World Yourself
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
What the public criticizes in you, cultivate. It is you.
JEAN COCTEAU

Criticism Cultivate Hate Inspirational Motivational Public Yourself
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
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
If a poet has a dream, it is not of becoming famous, but of being believed.
JEAN COCTEAU

Believe Deep Dreams Famous Poet
We shelter an angel within us. We must be the guardians of that angel.
JEAN COCTEAU

Angel Home Protection Shelter
The speed of a runaway horse counts for nothing.
JEAN COCTEAU

Animal Count Horse Speed Wasted

Fight any instinct to be humorless, for humorlessness is the worst of all absurdities.

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Fight any instinct to be humorless, for humorlessness is the worst of all absurdities.

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