Jean Cocteau Sayings and Quotes

Below you will find our collection of inspirational, wise, and humorous old Jean Cocteau quotes, Jean Cocteau sayings, and Jean Cocteau proverbs, collected over the years from a variety of sources.'

Poetry is indispensable --if I only knew what for. Jean Cocteau
The dead drug leaves a ghost behind. At certain hours it haunts the house. Jean Cocteau
See your disappointments as good fortune. One plan's deflation is another's inflation. Jean Cocteau
Youth is certain what it rejects before it knows what it will accept. Jean Cocteau
The greatest masterpiece in literature is only a dictionary out of order. Jean Cocteau
A film is a petrified fountain of thought. Jean Cocteau
Lying is the only art form that the public sanctions and instinctively prefers to reality. Jean Cocteau
Everyone's pet is the most outstanding. This begets mutual blindness. Jean Cocteau
An original artist is unable to copy. So he has only to copy in order to be original. Jean Cocteau
Art is a marriage of the conscious and the unconscious. Jean Cocteau
Style is a simple way of saying complicated things. Jean Cocteau
Mirror should think longer before they reflect. Jean Cocteau
Since it's now fashionable to laugh at the conservative French Academy, I have remained a rebel by joining it. Jean Cocteau
In Paris, everybody wants to be an actor; nobody is content to be a spectator. Jean Cocteau
Style is a simple way of saying complicated things. Jean Cocteau
One of the characteristics of the dream is that nothing surprises us in it. With no regret, we agree to live in it with strangers, completely cut off from our habits and friends. Jean Cocteau
A car can massage organs which no masseur can reach. It is the one remedy for the disorders of the great sympathetic nervous system. Jean Cocteau
The poet is at the disposal of the night. His role is humble, he must clean house and await its due visitation. Jean Cocteau
The composer opens the cage door for arithmetic, the draftsman gives geometry its freedom. Jean Cocteau
True realism consists in revealing the surprising things which habit keeps covered and prevents us from seeing. Jean Cocteau
If a hermit lives in a state of ecstasy, his lack of comfort becomes the height of comfort. He must relinquish it. Jean Cocteau
Style is a simple way of saying complicated things. Jean Cocteau
To be audacious with tact, you have to know to what point you can go too far. 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
All good music resembles something. Good music stirs by its mysterious resemblance to the objects and feelings which motivated it. Jean Cocteau
After the writer's death, reading his journal is like receiving a long letter. Jean Cocteau
And history becomes legend and legend becomes history. Jean Cocteau
Tact in audacity is knowing how far you can go without going too far. Jean Cocteau
You've never seen death? Look in the mirror every day and you will see it like bees working in a glass hive. Jean Cocteau
Mirrors are the doors through which Death comes and goes. Jean Cocteau