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Whatever the world condemns you for, make it your own. It is yourself.

Jean Cocteau

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
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
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
We are in a period of such individualism that one no longer speaks of disciples; one speaks of thieves.
JEAN COCTEAU

Discipline Oneself Period Talk Theft
Fight any instinct to be humorless, for humorlessness is the worst of all absurdities.
JEAN COCTEAU

Fight Humor Intuition Mad Worst
The extreme limit of wisdom, that’s what the public calls madness.
JEAN COCTEAU

Call Limitation Public Wisdom
A film is a petrified fountain of thought.
JEAN COCTEAU

Fountain Movie One Liner Thinking
An artist cannot speak about his art any more than a plant can discuss horticulture.
JEAN COCTEAU

Art Artist Discussion Plant Talk Voice
Art is science in the flesh.
JEAN COCTEAU

Art Body One Liner Science
Lying is the only art form that the public sanctions and instinctively prefers to reality.
JEAN COCTEAU

Art Lying Preference Reality
I know that poetry is indispensable, but to what I could not say.
JEAN COCTEAU

Myself Poetry Talk
Silence moves faster when it’s going backward.
JEAN COCTEAU

Fast Move One Liner Philosophy Silence
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
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
The eyes of the dead are closed gently; we also have to open gently the eyes of the living.
JEAN COCTEAU

Death Eyes Live
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.

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Whatever the world condemns you for, make it your own. It is yourself.

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Popular Authors

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