Living is a horizontal fall.
I love cats because I enjoy my home; and little by little, they become its visible soul.
Mirrors should think longer before they reflect.
Here I am trying to live, or rather, I am trying to teach the death within me how to live.
What the public criticizes in you, cultivate. It is you.
The prettiest dresses are worn to be taken off.
Be yourself. The world worships the original.
Art is science made clear.
If a poet has a dream, it is not of becoming famous, but of being believed.
We must believe in luck. For how else can we explain the success of those we don't like?
The day of my birth, my death began its walk. It is walking toward me, without hurrying.
There's no such thing as love; only proof of love.
The poet doesn't invent. He listens.
I am a lie that always speaks the truth.
An artist cannot speak about his art anymore than a plant can discuss horticulture.
I am burning myself up and will always do so.
Listen carefully to first criticisms made of your work. Note just what it is about your work that critics don't like - then cultivate it. That's the only part of your work that's individual and worth keeping.
All spiritual journeys are martyrdoms
I'm not willing just to be tolerated. That wounds my love of love and of liberty.
Art is a marriage of the conscious and the unconscious.
It is excruciating to be an unbeliever with a spirit that is deeply religious.
The greatest masterpiece in literature is only a dictionary out of order.
A true poet does not bother to be poetical. Nor does a nursery gardener scent his roses.
Art produces ugly things which frequently become more beautiful with time. Fashion, on the other hand, produces beautiful things which always become ugly with time.
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.
I've always preferred mythology to history. History is truth that becomes an illusion. Mythology is an illusion that becomes reality.
The smell of opium is the least stupid smell in the world.
Victor Hugo was a madman who thought he was Victor Hugo
Lack of manners is the sign of a hero.
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.
A little too much is just enough for me.
One should always talk well about oneself! The word spreads around and in the end, noone remembers where it started
What uniform can I wear to hide my heavy heart? It is too heavy. It will always show.
Without opium, plans, marriages and journeys appear to me just as foolish as if someone falling out of a window were to hope to make friends with the occupants of the room before which he passes.
Statues to great men are made of the stones thrown at them in their lifetime.
An original artist is unable to copy. So he has only to copy in order to be original.
True realism consists in revealing the surprising things which habit keeps covered and prevents us from seeing.
All good music resembles something. Good music stirs by its mysterious resemblance to the objects and feelings which motivated it.
A man's truest self realizations might require him, above all, to learn to close his eyes: to let himself be taken unawares, to follow his dark angel, to risk his illegal instincts.
I succeeded in bewitching a fair number and in being intoxicated with my mistakes.
I only fear the death of others. For me, true death is that of the people I love
I believe in luck: how else can you explain the success of those you don't like?
Mystery has its own mysteries, and there are gods above gods. We have ours, they have theirs. That is what's known as infinity.
We are in a period of such individualism that one no longer speaks of disciples; one speaks of thieves.
May the devil himself splatter you with dung.
Watch yourself all your life in a mirror and you'll see Death at work like bees in a glass hive.
There is an angel inside me whom I am constantly shocking.
Catastrophe, riots, factories blowing up, armies in flight, flood - the ear can detect a whole apocalypse in the starry night of the human body.
It is excruciating to be an unbeliever with a spirit that is deeply religious... Poetry is a religion without hope.
Poetry, being elegance itself, cannot hope to achieve visibility. It insists on living its own life.
The purity of a revolution can last a fortnight. That is why a poet, the revolutionary of the soul, limits himself to the about-turns of the mind.
Youth can only assert itself through the conviction that its ventures surpass all others and resemble nothing.
It is dangerous not to conform with people's image of us, because they do not readily retract their opinions.
The map of our life is folded in such a way that we cannot see one main road across it, but as it is opened out, we are constantly seeing new side roads. We think we are choosing, and we have no choice.
I grant you that, if you'll admit, as I do, that we are pawns of an unknown force that lives within us that dictates our actions and compels us to speak this language.
Die meisten Menschen leben in den Ruinen ihrer Gewohnheiten.
We only serve as a model to the portrait of our fame
The obstinate miner of the void exploits his fertile mine
The worst tragedy for a poet is to be admired through being misunderstood.
You’ve never seen death? Look in the mirror every day and you will see it like bees working in a glass hive.
Imitate, and what is personal will eventually come despite yourself.
Emotion resulting from a work of art is only of value when it is not obtained by sentimental blackmail.
He who is affected by an insult is infected by it.
We shelter an angel within us. We must be the guardians of that angel.
I suppose the artists invented the firm breasts they put on women, and that in reality all women had flabby ones.
Without resistance you can do nothing.
Style is a simple way of saying complicated things.
A film is a petrified fountain of thought.
One of the characteristics of the dream is that nothing surprises us in it.
Plant it It will sprout But forget about the rustic festivities For the explosive word falls harmlessly eternal through the compact generations
Čudo, ako potraje, prestaje da bude čudo.Zato priviđenja tako brzo i nestaju.
Gute Erziehung besteht darin, dass man verbirgt, wieviel man von sich selber hlt und wie wenig von den anderen.
The poet is a liar who always speaks the truth.
What is style? Saying complicated things in a simple way.
Classifiable things reek of death. You must strike out in other spheres . . . quit the ranks. That's the sign of masterpieces and heroes. An original, that's the person to astonish and to rule.
When I make a film, it is a sleep in which I am dreaming.
The poet never asks for admiration; he wants to be believed.
Asking an artist to talk about his work is like asking a plant to discuss horticulture.
![[W]e have a tendency to judge others according to ourselves.](https://quotes.thefamouspeople.com/images/quotes/jean-cocteau-25401.jpg)
[W]e have a tendency to judge others according to ourselves.
A picture neither saddening nor gladdening I fear; neither beautiful nor ugly.
