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About this quote

What does it mean?
Deaths of young people are framed artistically rather than as senseless violence.
In plain terms
Death is seen as dressing angels, not killing youth.
What can you take from it?
Reframe loss as artistic or divine.

Where it applies

  • mourning
  • art critique
  • philosophy

Putting it to work

  • reframe tragic loss
  • find beauty in loss

Questions to consider

  • How should we view the dead?
  • Is it comforting to see loss as art?

Another view

It romanticizes death rather than addressing tragedy.

More from Jean Cocteau

  1. I have lost my seven best friends, which is to say God has had mercy on me seven times without realizing it. He lent a friendship, took it from me, sent me ano…

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  2. He has the manner of a giant with the look of a child, a lazy activeness, a mad wisdom, a solitude encompassing the world.

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  3. That pile of paper on his left side went on living like the watch on a dead soldier's wrist.

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