Authors
Topics
Lists
Pictures
Resources
More about Jean Cocteau
Jean Cocteau -
Poetry
Quotes
7 Sourced Quotes
View all Jean Cocteau Quotes
Source
Report...
Poetry is a religion without hope, but its martyrs guarantee the eternal truth of its dogma.
Jean Cocteau
Source
Report...
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
Source
Report...
Poetry is indispensable — if I only knew what for.
Jean Cocteau
Source
Report...
Poetry is an ethic. By ethic I mean a secret code of behavior, a discipline constructed and conducted according to the capabilities of a man who rejects the falsifications of the categorical imperative.
This personal morality may appear to be immorality itself in the eyes of those who lie to themselves, or who live a life of confusion, in such a manner that, for them, a lie becomes the truth, and our truth becomes a lie...
Jean Cocteau
Source
Report...
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
Source
Report...
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
Source
Report...
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
Quote of the day
Nobody ever did anything very foolish except from some strong principle.
William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne
Jean Cocteau
Creative Commons
Born:
July 5, 1889
Died:
October 11, 1963
(aged 74)
More about Jean Cocteau...
Featured Authors
Lists
Predictions that didn't happen
If it's on the Internet it must be true
Remarkable Last Words (or Near-Last Words)
Picture Quotes
Confucius
Philip James Bailey
Eleanor Roosevelt
Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Popular Topics
life
love
nature
time
god
power
human
mind
work
art
heart
thought
men
day
×
Lib Quotes