There is always a period when a man with a beard shaves it off. This period does not last. He return...
JEAN COCTEAU Children and lunatics cut the Gordian knot which the poet spends his life patiently trying to untie.
JEAN COCTEAU Mirrors should think longer before they reflect.
JEAN COCTEAU All good music resembles something. Good music stirs by its mysterious resemblance to the objects an...
JEAN COCTEAU If a hermit lives in a state of ecstasy, his lack of comfort becomes the height of comfort. He must ...
JEAN COCTEAU One of the characteristics of the dream is that nothing surprises us in it. With no regret, we agree...
JEAN COCTEAU The greatest masterpiece in literature is only a dictionary out of order.
JEAN COCTEAU Poetry is indispensable --if I only knew what for.
JEAN COCTEAU Such is the role of poetry. It unveils, in the strict sense of the word. It lays bare, under a light...
JEAN COCTEAU Art is science made clear.
JEAN COCTEAU One must be a living man and a posthumous artist.
JEAN COCTEAU I am a lie who always speaks the truth.
JEAN COCTEAU I have a piece of great and sad news to tell you: I am dead.
JEAN COCTEAU Since the day of my birth, my death began its walk. It is walking toward me, without hurrying.
JEAN COCTEAU What the public criticizes in you, cultivate. It is you.
JEAN COCTEAU Art produces ugly things which frequently become more beautiful with time. Fashion, on the other han...
JEAN COCTEAU Style is a simple way of saying complicated things.
JEAN COCTEAU What is line? It is life. A line must live at each point along its course in such a way that the art...
JEAN COCTEAU It is not I who become addicted, it is my body.
JEAN COCTEAU If an addict who has been completely cured starts smoking again he no longer experiences the discomf...
JEAN COCTEAU Tact is knowing how far to go too far.
JEAN COCTEAU Tact in audacity consists in knowing how far we may go too far.
JEAN COCTEAU If it has to choose who is to be crucified, the crowd will always save Barabbas.
JEAN COCTEAU Take a commonplace, clean it and polish it, light it so that it produces the same effect of youth an...
JEAN COCTEAU We must believe in luck. For how else can we explain the success of those we don't like?
JEAN COCTEAU Man seeks to escape himself in myth, and does so by any means at his disposal. Drugs, alcohol, or li...
JEAN COCTEAU Everything one does in life, even love, occurs in an express train racing toward death. To smoke opi...
JEAN COCTEAU When a work appears to be ahead of its time, it is only the time that is behind the work.
JEAN COCTEAU An original artist is unable to copy. So he has only to copy in order to be original.
JEAN COCTEAU The joy of youth is to disobey; but the trouble is that there are no longer any orders.
JEAN COCTEAU Mystery has its own mysteries, and there are gods above gods. We have ours, they have theirs. That i...
JEAN COCTEAU The Louver is a morgue; you go there to identify your friends.
JEAN COCTEAU True realism consists in revealing the surprising things which habit keeps covered and prevents us f...
JEAN COCTEAU A film is a petrified fountain of thought.
JEAN COCTEAU I love my cats because I love my home, and little by little they become its visible soul.
JEAN COCTEAU A car can massage organs which no masseur can reach. It is the one remedy for the disorders of the g...
JEAN COCTEAU Tact consists in knowing how far to go too far.
JEAN COCTEAU The worst tragedy for a poet is to be admired through being misunderstood.
JEAN COCTEAU The poet is a liar who always speaks the truth.
JEAN COCTEAU Poets don't draw. They unravel their handwriting and then tie it up again, but differently.
JEAN COCTEAU I love cats because I enjoy my home; and little by little, they become its visible soul.
JEAN COCTEAU I believe in luck: how else can you explain the success of those you dislike?
JEAN COCTEAU When I write, I disturb. When I show a film, I disturb. When I exhibit my painting, I disturb, and I...
JEAN COCTEAU Tact in audacity is knowing how far you can go without going too far.
JEAN COCTEAU Silence moves faster when it's going backward.
JEAN COCTEAU The actual tragedies of life bear no relation to one's preconceived ideas. In the event, one is ...
JEAN COCTEAU The instinct of nearly all societies is to lock up anybody who is truly free. First, society begins ...
JEAN COCTEAU The actual tragedies of life bear no relation to one's preconceived ideas. In the event, one is alwa...
JEAN COCTEAU The extreme limit of wisdom --that's what the public calls madness.
JEAN COCTEAU Wealth is an inborn attitude of mind, like poverty. The pauper who has made his pile may flaunt his ...
JEAN COCTEAU I know that poetry is indispensable, but to what I could not say.
JEAN COCTEAU We must believe in luck. For how else can we explain the success of those we don't like.
JEAN COCTEAU Life is a horizontal fall.
JEAN COCTEAU The actual tragedies of life bear no relation to one's preconceived ideas. In the event, one is alwa...
JEAN COCTEAU Style is a simple way of saying complicated things
JEAN COCTEAU A true poet does not bother to be poetical. Nor does a nursery gardener scent his roses.
JEAN COCTEAU There are poets and there are grownups.
JEAN COCTEAU Tact consists in knowing how far to go too far
JEAN COCTEAU Take a commonplace, clean it and polish it, light it so that it produces the same effect of youth an...
JEAN COCTEAU The reward of art is not fame or success but intoxication: that is why so many bad artists are unabl...
JEAN COCTEAU The day of my birth, my death began its walk. It is walking toward me, without hurrying.
JEAN COCTEAU The Louvre is a morgue; you go there to identify your friends.
JEAN COCTEAU Art is not a pastime but a priesthood
JEAN COCTEAU If it has to choose who will be crucified, the crowd will always save Barabbas
JEAN COCTEAU Emotion resulting from a work of art is only of value when it is not obtained by sentimental blackma...
JEAN COCTEAU Poets don't draw. They unravel their handwriting and then tie it up again, but differently.
JEAN COCTEAU The extreme limit of wisdom, that's what the public calls madness.
JEAN COCTEAU In Paris, everybody wants to be an actor; nobody is content to be a spectator.
JEAN COCTEAU Enough of clouds, waves, aquariums, water-sprites and nocturnal scents; what we need is music of the...
JEAN COCTEAU Children and lunatics cut the Gordian knot, which the poet spends his life patiently trying to untie
JEAN COCTEAU The public only takes up yesterday as a stick to beat today
JEAN COCTEAU You've never seen death? Look in the mirror every day and you will see it like bees working in a...
JEAN COCTEAU The poet doesn't invent. He listens.
JEAN COCTEAU Asking an artist to talk about his work is like asking a plant to discuss horticulture.
JEAN COCTEAU Here I am trying to live, or rather, I am trying to teach the death within me how to live.
JEAN COCTEAU There are truths which one can only say after having won the right to say them.
JEAN COCTEAU A good upbringing consists in hiding how much you think of yourself, and how little you think of oth...
JEAN COCTEAU The instinct of nearly all societies is to lock up anybody who is truly free. First, society begins ...
JEAN COCTEAU Commissions suit me. They set limits. Jean Marais dared me to write play in which he would not speak...
JEAN COCTEAU The poet never asks for admiration; he wants to be believed.
JEAN COCTEAU Mirrors should reflect a little before throwing back images
JEAN COCTEAU Film will only became an art when its materials are as inexpensive as pencil and paper.
JEAN COCTEAU Whatever the public blames you for, cultivate it; it is yourself
JEAN COCTEAU I have lost my seven best friends, which is to say God has had mercy on me seven times without reali...
JEAN COCTEAU The smell of opium is the least stupid smell in the world.
JEAN COCTEAU You've never seen death? Look in the mirror every day and you will see it like bees working in a gla...
JEAN COCTEAU An artist cannot speak about his art any more than a plant can discuss horticulture.
JEAN COCTEAU The speed of a runaway horse counts for nothing
JEAN COCTEAU Emotion resulting from a work of art is only of value when it is not obtained by sentimental blackma...
JEAN COCTEAU Being tactful in audacity is knowing how far one can go to far.
JEAN COCTEAU There are too many souls of wood not to love those wooden characters who do indeed have a soul.
JEAN COCTEAU Sentir antes de comprender.
JEAN COCTEAU Victor Hugo was a madman who thought he was Victor Hugo
JEAN COCTEAU Living is a horizontal fall.
JEAN COCTEAU The extreme limit of wisdom, that's what the public calls madness.
JEAN COCTEAU Mystery has its own mysteries, and there are gods above gods. We have ours, they have theirs. That i...
JEAN COCTEAU Art is a marriage of the conscious and the unconscious.
JEAN COCTEAU Die meisten Menschen leben in den Ruinen ihrer Gewohnheiten.
JEAN COCTEAU Jeannot la bêtise des amoureux est immense, végétale, animale, astrale. Que faire? Comment te fai...
JEAN COCTEAU Every poem is a coat of arms. It must be deciphered. How much blood, how many tears in exchange for ...
JEAN COCTEAU It's perfectly normal that extraordinary things happen to me. I'm an exceptional person. Oh, don't t...
COCTEAU The conscience of children is formed by the influences that surround them; their notions of good and...
JEAN PAUL The moon looks upon many night flowers; the night flowers see but one moon.
JEAN INGELOW Only the mediocre are always at their best.
JEAN GIRAUDOUX A healthful hunger for a great idea is the beauty and blessedness of life.
JEAN INGELOW My daddy was a minister, my grandfather was a voodoo priest, my uncle was a mason; I was raised with...
WYCLEF JEAN Like dreams, statistics are a form of wish fulfillment.
JEAN BAUDRILLARD At the end of the day, just know that God made you, so you can be your own individual, and don't...
WYCLEF JEAN In my long and difficult and mature life, I have come to learn that the less I know about acting and...
JEAN SEBERG There are souls which fall from heaven like flowers, but ere they bloom are crushed under the foul t...
JEAN PAUL Too often, we make budget cuts - then blow the savings. Instead, think about your financial picture....
JEAN CHATZKY One way to make sure you don't lose assets in the future is to streamline your accounts. Conside...
JEAN CHATZKY The brave men die in war. It takes great luck or judgment not to be killed. Once, at least, the head...
JEAN GIRAUDOUX If you want to give a tangible present, but you know the recipient wants cash, give a little bit of ...
JEAN CHATZKY Idleness is many gathered miseries in one name.
JEAN PAUL It would be ugly to watch people poking sticks at a caged rat. It is uglier still to watch rats poki...
JEAN HARRIS Courage consists not in blindly overlooking danger, but in seeing it, and conquering it.
JEAN PAUL Turning a blind eye to your finances always brings trouble. When you let the bills or late notices s...
JEAN CHATZKY I don't judge a regime by the damning criticism of the opposition, but by the ingenuous praise of th...
JEAN ROSTAND A poor person who is unhappy is in a better position than a rich person who is unhappy because the p...
JEAN KERR The more sand has escaped from the hourglass of our life, the clearer we should see through it.
JEAN PAUL That's the best way to feed the human mind. That's how Bob Marley did it. He never put it in...
WYCLEF JEAN Men try to run life according to their wishes; life runs itself according to necessity.
JEAN TOOMER Bob Marley stood for universal peace and love. He tried to break racial barriers.
WYCLEF JEAN The look of a king is itself a deed.
JEAN PAUL Marrying a man is like buying something you've been admiring for a long time in a shop window. You m...
JEAN KERR I think I am one of those who can manage not to take on a completely different appearance under thei...
JEAN ROSTAND Unlike other loans, a reverse mortgage doesn't have to be repaid until the borrower moves out of...
JEAN CHATZKY A woman of mystique is fully aware of her flaws and weaknesses, yet she is strong enough to admit ...
JEAN LUSH Nothing leads the scientist so astray as a premature truth.
JEAN ROSTAND When a scientist is ahead of his times, it is often through misunderstanding of current, rather than...
JEAN ROSTAND It is not easy to imagine how little interested a scientist usually is in the work of any other, wit...
JEAN ROSTAND It is sometimes important for science to know how to forget the things she is surest of.
JEAN ROSTAND A body of work such as Pasteur's is inconceivable in our time: no man would be given a chance to cre...
JEAN ROSTAND The truly terrible thing is that everybody has their reasons.
JEAN RENOIR To reflect is to disturb one's thoughts.
JEAN ROSTAND Perhaps the world's second worst crime is boredom. The first is being a bore.
JEAN BAUDRILLARD She said, "As long as we're with each other--"
"We know we're in exactly the right place," he f...
JEAN FERRIS Prerequisite for rereadability in books: that they be forgettable.
JEAN ROSTAND The books one has written in the past have two surprises in store: one couldn't write them again, an...
JEAN ROSTAND She could give herself up to the written word as naturally as a good dancer to music or a fine swimm...
JEAN RHYS In politics, yesterday's lie is attacked only to flatter today's.
JEAN ROSTAND In order to remain true to oneself one ought to renounce one's party three times a day.
JEAN ROSTAND It is sometimes well for a blatant error to draw attention to overmodest truths.
JEAN ROSTAND One of the most difficult things to contend with in a hospital is that assumption on the part of the...
JEAN KERR Whether man is disposed to yield to nature or to oppose her, he cannot do without a correct understa...
JEAN ROSTAND Certain brief sentences are peerless in their ability to give one the feeling that nothing remains...
JEAN ROSTAND The only things one can admire at length are those one admires without knowing why.
JEAN ROSTAND There are certain moments when we might wish the future were built by men of the past.
JEAN ROSTAND Certain brief sentences are peerless in their ability to give one the feeling that nothing remains t...
JEAN ROSTAND The only things one can admire at length are those one admires without knowing why.
JEAN ROSTAND God, that dumping ground of our dreams.
JEAN ROSTAND God, that checkroom of our dreams.
JEAN ROSTAND I'm starting to believe that happily ever after includes people doing things that upset each other. ...
JEAN FERRIS The principle goal of education in the schools should be creating men and women who are capable of d...
JEAN PIAGET The principle goal of education is to create men who are capable of doing new things, not simply of ...
JEAN PIAGET You don't seem to realize that a poor person who is unhappy is in a better position than a rich pe...
JEAN KERR Strong character is brought out by change, weak ones by permanence.
JEAN PAUL The nobility of a human being is strictly independent of that of his convictions.
JEAN ROSTAND The timid are afraid before the danger, the cowardly while in danger, and the courageous after dange...
JEAN PAUL We can be seduced...by powerful political groups that promise more wealth and lower taxes. Those wit...
JEAN VANIER At twenty-four she imagined with dread that she was growing old.
JEAN RHYS A man must dream a long time in order to act with grandeur, and dreaming is nursed in darkness.
JEAN GENET Stupidity, outrage, vanity, cruelty, iniquity, bad faith, falsehood -- we fail to see the whole arra...
JEAN ROSTAND Power may be at the end of a gun, but sometimes it's also at the end of the shadow or the image of a...
JEAN GENET Contact with men who wield power and authority still leaves an intangible sense of repulsion. It's v...
JEAN BAUDRILLARD Life is a comedy to those who think, a tragedy to those who feel.
JEAN RACINE Memory is the only paradise from which we cannot be driven.
JEAN PAUL The only medicine that does women more good than harm is dress.
JEAN PAUL To be adult is to be alone.
JEAN ROSTAND Perhaps all music, even the newest, is not so much something discovered as something that re-emerges...
JEAN GENET No author can be as moral as his work and no preacher as pious as his sermons.
JEAN PAUL Humankind's chief fault is that they have so many small ones.
JEAN PAUL Passion makes the best observations and the sorriest conclusions.
JEAN PAUL The parent is low, who having children, truly feels bored.
JEAN PAUL It takes a very deep-rooted opinion to survive unexpressed.
JEAN ROSTAND You don't seem to realize that a poor person who is unhappy is in a better position than a rich pers...
JEAN KERR We all have the extraordinary coded within us... waiting to be released.
JEAN HOUSTON The era of the political was one of anomie: crisis, violence, madness and revolution. The era of the...
JEAN BAUDRILLARD Politicians -- power itself -- are abject because they merely embody the profound contempt people ha...
JEAN BAUDRILLARD It only takes a politician believing in what he says for the others to stop believing him.
JEAN BAUDRILLARD The abjection of our political situation is the only true challenge today. Only facing up to this si...
JEAN BAUDRILLARD The end we aim at must be known, before the way can be made.
JEAN PAUL The average, healthy, well-adjusted adult gets up at seven-thirty in the morning feeling just plain ...
JEAN KERR The ideal, without doubt, varies, but its enemies, alas, are always the same.
JEAN ROSTAND Brevity is the body and soul of wit.
JEAN PAUL Idleness is many gathered miseries in one name.
JEAN PAUL No one is more profoundly sad as one who laughs too much.
JEAN PAUL Even though a number of people have tried, no one has ever found a way to drink for a living.
JEAN KERR It may offend us to hear our own thoughts expressed by others: we are not sure enough of their souls...
JEAN ROSTAND If you can keep your head about you when all about you are losing theirs, its just possible you have...
JEAN KERR If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs, it's just possible you haven't grasp...
JEAN KERR Effective action is always unjust.
JEAN ANOUILH Beauty in art is often nothing but ugliness subdued.
JEAN ROSTAND I'm tired of all this nonsense about beauty being only skin-deep. That's deep enough. What do you wa...
JEAN KERR Fiction is not imagination. It is what anticipates imagination by giving it the form of reality. Thi...
JEAN BAUDRILLARD The divine is perhaps that quality in man which permits him to endure the lack of God.
JEAN ROSTAND One must credit an hypothesis with all that has had to be discovered in order to demolish it.
JEAN ROSTAND Small crimes always precedes great ones.
JEAN RACINE Repudiating the virtues of your world, criminals hopelessly agree to organize a forbidden universe. ...
JEAN GENET