328 Quotes by Jean Cocteau

Mirrors would do well to reflect a little more before sending back images.

And now I have to confess the unpardonable and the scandalous. I am a happy man. And I am going to tell you the secret of my happiness. It is quite simple. I love mankind. I love love. I hate hate. I try to understand and accept.

People seek escape in myth by any means at their disposal, including drugs, alcohol, meditation, and lies.

There are poets and there are grownups.

The ultimate politeness in art consists of speaking only to those who are able to uncover and measure its relationships. Anything else is symbolic, and symbolism is merely transcendental imagery.

The artist is a kind of prison from which the works of art escape.

History is a combination of reality and lies. The reality of History becomes a lie. The unreality of the fable becomes the truth.

The course of a river is almost always disapproved of by the source.

A car can massage organs which no masseur can reach. It is the one remedy for the disorders of the great sympathetic nervous system.