Jean Cocteau Quotes

Whatever the public blames you for, cultivate it; it is yourself.
- Jean Cocteau

I feel that there is an angel inside me whom I am constantly shocking.
- Jean Cocteau

Here I am trying to live, or rather, I am trying to teach the death within me how to live.
- Jean Cocteau

Art is not a pastime but a priesthood.
- Jean Cocteau

Children and lunatics cut the Gordian knot which the poet spends his life patiently trying to untie.
- Jean Cocteau

A true poet does not bother to be poetical. Nor does a nursery gardener scent his roses.
- Jean Cocteau

The poet doesn’t invent. He listens.
- Jean Cocteau

The worst fate of a poet is to be admired without being understood.
- Jean Cocteau

Since the day of my birth, my death began its walk. It is walking toward me, without hurrying.
- Jean Cocteau

I love cats because I enjoy my home; and little by little, they become its visible soul.
- Jean Cocteau

Art is science made clear.
- Jean Cocteau

We must believe in luck. For how else can we explain the success of those we don’t like?
- Jean Cocteau

A film is a petrified fountain of thought.
- Jean Cocteau

When a work appears to be ahead of its time, it is only the time that is behind the work.
- Jean Cocteau

Life is a horizontal fall.
- Jean Cocteau