Jean Cocteau Quotes

113 Sourced Quotes

Do not fear being ridiculous in relation to the ridiculous.

Jean Cocteau
Victor Hugo was a madman who thought he was Victor Hugo.

Jean Cocteau
I have lost my seven best friends, which is to say God has had mercy on me seven times without realizing it. He lent a friendship, took it from me, sent me another.

Jean Cocteau
Look out! Be on your guard, because alone of all the arts, music moves all around you.

Jean Cocteau
There is always a period when a man with a beard shaves it off. This period does not last. He returns headlong to his beard.

Jean Cocteau
The ear disapproves but tolerates certain musical pieces; transfer them into the domain of our nose, and we will be forced to flee.

Jean Cocteau
The trouble about the Académie is that by the time they get around to electing us to a seat, we really need a bed.

Jean Cocteau
Being tactful in audacity is knowing how far one can go too far.

Jean Cocteau
The poet never asks for admiration; he wants to be believed.

Jean Cocteau
Expect neither reward nor beatitude. Return noble waves for ignoble.

Jean Cocteau
Tact consists in knowing how far to go in going too far.

Jean Cocteau
He has the manner of a giant with the look of a child, a lazy activeness, a mad wisdom, a solitude encompassing the world.

Jean Cocteau
What uniform can I wear to hide my heavy heart? It is too heavy. It will always show. Jacques felt himself growing gloomy again. He was well aware that to live on earth a man must follow its fashions, and hearts were no longer worn.

Jean Cocteau
Poetry is indispensable — if I only knew what for.

Jean Cocteau
Poetry, being elegance itself, cannot hope to achieve visibility. In that case, you ask me, of what use is it? Of no use. Who will see it? No one. Which does not prevent it from being an outrage to modesty, though its exhibitionism is squandered on the blind. It is enough for poetry to express a personal ethic, which can then break away in the form of a work. It insists on living its own life. It becomes the pretext for a thousand misunderstandings that go by the name of glory...

Jean Cocteau
Here I am trying to live, or rather, I am trying to teach the death within me how to live.

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

Jean Cocteau
In two weeks, despite these notes, I shall no longer believe in what I am experiencing now. One must leave behind a trace of this journey which memory forgets. One must, when this is impossible, write or draw without responding to the romantic solicitations of pain, without enjoying suffering like music, tieing a pen to one's foot if need be, helping the doctors who can learn nothing from laziness.

Jean Cocteau
He who is affected by an insult is infected by it.

Jean Cocteau
Don't for a moment believe He was killing the young; He was costuming angels.

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

Jean Cocteau
All good music resembles something. Good music stirs by its mysterious resemblance to the objects and feelings which motivated it.

Jean Cocteau
The instinct of nearly all societies is to lock up anybody who is truly free. First, society begins by trying to beat you up. If this fails, they try to poison you. If this fails too, they finish by loading honors on your head.

Jean Cocteau
After the writer's death, reading his journal is like receiving a long letter.

Jean Cocteau
The extreme limit of wisdom — that's what the public calls madness.

Jean Cocteau