Jean Cocteau citations célèbres
Jean Cocteau Citations
La Machine Infernale
Jean Cocteau: Citations en anglais
“I have a piece of great and sad news to tell you: I am dead.”
"Visite" in Discours du Grand Sommeil (1920); later published in Collected Works Vol. 4 (1947)
Opium (1929)
“Originality consists in trying to be like everybody else — and failing.”
Raymond Radiguet, who was quoted by Cocteau in his acceptance speech to the Académie Française (October 1955)
Misattributed
“Beauty cannot be recognized with a cursory glance.”
Diary of an Unknown (1988), On Invisibility
“There are too many souls of wood not to love those wooden characters who do indeed have a soul.”
On marionettes, as quoted in The New York Times (15 February 1987)
“Do not fear being ridiculous in relation to the ridiculous.”
Diary of an Unknown (1988)
On Orson Welles, as quoted in The New York Times (11 October 1985)
“The extreme limit of wisdom — that’s what the public calls madness.”
Le Coq et l’Arlequin (1918)
“We shelter an angel within us. We must be the guardians of that angel.”
Also quoted in Diary of an Unknown (1991) as translated by Jesse Browne.
Le Coq et l’Arlequin (1918)
“After the writer’s death, reading his journal is like receiving a long letter.”
On the journal of Franz Kafka; diary entry (7 June 1953); Past Tense: Diaries Vol. 2 (1988)
“A film is a petrified fountain of thought.”
Esquire magazine (February 1961)
As quoted by Ned Rorem The Dick Cavett Show (PBS) (6 October 1981)
On his election to Académie Française (1955)
As quoted in An Encyclopedia of Quotations About Music (1981) by Nat Shapiro, p. 130
As quoted in Moments of Clarity (2002) by Thomas L. Jackson, p. 88
“A prig always finds a last refuge in responsibility.”
The Wedding on the Eiffel Tower (1922), Preface
“The Louvre is like the morgue; one goes there to identify one’s friends.”
"Le Secret Professionnel" in Le Rappel à l’Ordre (1922; 1926)
As quoted by Roger Shattuck in "A Native Son of Paris", Jean Cocteau and the French Scene (1984)
Variante: The Louvre is a morgue; you go there to identify your friends.
“Tact in audacity is knowing how far you can go without going too far.”
Variant translation: Tact in audacity consists in knowing how far we may go too far.
Le Coq et l’Arlequin (1918)
“Consider metaphysics as an extension of the physical.”
Diary of an Unknown (1988)
“Poets don’t draw. They unravel their handwriting and then tie it up again, but differently.”
Dessins (1924), as quoted by Pierre Chanel in "A Thousand Flashes of Genius", Jean Cocteau and the French Scene (1984)
Les Enfants Terribles translation by Rosamond Lehmann (1929)
