Jean Cocteau on light
Jean Cocteau94 quotes“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.”
More from Jean Cocteau
A true photographer is as rare as a true poet or a true painter.
Jean CocteauJean Cocteau Whatever the world condemns you for, make it your own. It is yourself.
Jean CocteauJean Cocteau The public is never pleased with what we do, wanting always a copy of what we have done.
Jean CocteauJean Cocteau 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 CocteauJean Cocteau We must believe in luck. For how else can we explain the success of those we don’t like?
Jean CocteauJean Cocteau Poetry, being elegance itself, cannot hope to achieve visibility… It insists on living its own life.
Jean CocteauJean Cocteau Art is a marriage of the conscious and the unconscious.
Jean CocteauJean Cocteau I only fear the death of others. For me, true death is that of the people I love.
Jean CocteauJean Cocteau I have a piece of great and sad news to tell you: I am dead.
Jean CocteauJean Cocteau Poetry is a religion with no hope.
Jean CocteauJean Cocteau Art is science in the flesh.
Jean CocteauJean Cocteau Fight any instinct to be humorless, for humorlessness is the worst of all absurdities.
Jean CocteauJean Cocteau 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 CocteauJean 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 CocteauJean Cocteau 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 CocteauJean Cocteau Elegance ceases to exist when it is noticed.
Jean CocteauJean Cocteau
Original quotes
From our community writers
How strange that our hearts heal from the same thing that broke it -love.
Cailin HargreavesCailin Hargreaves The peak of intensity is numbness not emotionless.
Anamika GargAnamika Garg She is everything and nothing at all.
Ava NicoleAva Nicole She built her castle at rock bottom.
Harriet SelinaHarriet Selina Keep growing into yourself.
Sophia JoanSophia Joan They tell you to be grateful for what you have. But you are also allowed to be sad for what you have lost.
Sabina LauraSabina Laura what the sky is to a bird is like a dream for a dreamer.
Safna SulaimanSafna Sulaiman The Red Rose on my grave shows once I was in love.
Moses AlexanderMoses Alexander
Meet the writers
More on light
Our eyes are at fault, that is all. God is in the manger, wealth in poverty, light in darkness, succor in abandonment.
Dietrich BonhoefferDietrich Bonhoeffer I personally believe breathatarianism to be the highest mode of human living breathing in pure air, absorbing the direct light and energies of the sun, bathing in pure water I look at the obituaries every morning and ain’t nobody listed but you eaters.
Dick GregoryDick Gregory The early morning belongs to the Church of the risen Christ. At the break of light it remembers the morning on which death and sin lay prostrate in defeat and new life and salvation were given to mankind.
Dietrich BonhoefferDietrich Bonhoeffer Some day I shall sing to thee in the sunrise of some other world, I have seen thee before in the light of the earth, in the love of man.
Rabindranath TagoreRabindranath Tagore We’re being trained through our incarnations–trained to seek love, trained to seek light, trained to see the grace in suffering.
Ram DassRam Dass Sometimes, we are stuck in the dark for so long, we sometimes forget what light looks like, what hope and love feel like.
Anand ThakurAnand Thakur Faith is the bird that feels the light and sings when the dawn is still dark.
Rabindranath TagoreRabindranath Tagore Just because you are seeing divine light, experiencing waves of bliss, or conversing with Gods and Goddesses is no reason to not know your zip code.
Ram DassRam Dass
