Jean Cocteau Novelist
Gender: Male
Citizenship: France
Born: Jul 5, 1889
Died: Oct 11, 1963
Jean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau was a French writer, designer, playwright, artist and filmmaker. Cocteau is best known for his novel Les Enfants Terribles, and the films Blood of a Poet, Les Parents Terribles, Beauty and the Beast and Orpheus. His circle of associates, friends and lovers included Kenneth Anger, Pablo Picasso, Jean Hugo, Jean Marais, Henri Bernstein, Yul Brynner, Marlene Dietrich, Coco Chanel, Erik Satie, Igor Stravinsky, María Félix, Édith Piaf, Panama Al Brown, Colette and Raymond Radiguet.
After the writer's death, reading his journal is like receiving a long letter.
death
Art is not a pastime but a priesthood.
art
The extreme limit of wisdom, that's what the public calls madness.
wisdom
All good music resembles something. Good music stirs by its mysterious resemblance to the objects and feelings which motivated it.
good & music
Film will only became an art when its materials are as inexpensive as pencil and paper.
art
I love cats because I enjoy my home and little by little, they become its visible soul.
home , love & pet
Art is a marriage of the conscious and the unconscious.
art & marriage
Children and lunatics cut the Gordian knot which the poet spends his life patiently trying to untie.
poetry
The poet is a liar who always speaks the truth.
poetry & truth
The reward of art is not fame or success but intoxication: that is why so many bad artists are unable to give it up.
art & success
I believe in luck: how else can you explain the success of those you dislike?
success
The poet doesn't invent. He listens.
poetry
You've never seen death? Look in the mirror every day and you will see it like bees working in a glass hive.
death
An artist cannot speak about his art any more than a plant can discuss horticulture.
art
I have a piece of great and sad news to tell you: I am dead.
sad
The day of my birth, my death began its walk. It is walking toward me, without hurrying.
death
Here I am trying to live, or rather, I am trying to teach the death within me how to live.
death
I am a lie who always speaks the truth.
truth
Poetry is indispensable - if I only knew what for.
poetry
A true poet does not bother to be poetical. Nor does a nursery gardener scent his roses.
poetry
Since the day of my birth, my death began its walk. It is walking toward me, without hurrying.
death
Emotion resulting from a work of art is only of value when it is not obtained by sentimental blackmail.
art & work
A film is a petrified fountain of thought.
movies
We must believe in luck. For how else can we explain the success of those we don't like?
success
There is science, logic, reason there is thought verified by experience. And then there is California.
174 views regarding experience
Knowledge of human nature is the beginning and end of political education.
204 quotes about education
Learning is not attained by chance, it must be sought for with ardor and diligence.
204 other views regarding education
In wisdom gathered over time I have found that every experience is a form of exploration.
174 other quotes about experience
Don't be afraid of failure be afraid of petty success.
141 thoughts about failure
Courage and perseverance have a magical talisman, before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish into air.
158 views about courage
The fear of death often proves mortal, and sets people on methods to save their Lives, which infallibly destroy them.
320 quotes relating to death
For more than three thousand years men have quarreled concerning the formulas of their faith.
240 more wisdom & wit about faith
Normality is death.
320 quotes regarding death
There's my education in computers, right there this is the whole thing, everything I took out of a book.
13 more thoughts regarding computers
Courage: Great Russian word, fit for the songs of our children's children, pure on their tongues, and free.
158 quotes about courage
Our dreams drench us in senses, and senses steps us again in dreams.
135 thoughts regarding dreams
Happy is the son whose faith in his mother remains unchallenged.
240 more quotes about faith
Both expectations and memories are more than mere images founded on previous experience.
174 more thoughts about experience
Often the test of courage is not to die but to live.
158 other thoughts about courage
My father never raised his hand to any one of his children, except in self-defense.
38 quotes about dad
Whether you be man or woman you will never do anything in this world without courage. It is the greatest quality of the mind next to honor.
158 thoughts regarding courage
He who has conquered doubt and fear has conquered failure.
141 more thoughts regarding failure
I like the religion that teaches liberty, equality and fraternity.
43 other wisdom & wit about equality
Faith is the virtue by which, clinging-to the faithfulness of God, we lean upon him, so that we may obtain what he gives to us.
240 quotes about faith
Pure truth cannot be assimilated by the crowd it must be communicated by contagion.
41 quotes about communication
When you stop having dreams and ideals - well, you might as well stop altogether.
135 more quotes about dreams
It takes a certain courage and a certain greatness to be truly base.
158 other quotes regarding courage
Failure is impossible.
141 more views about failure