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Paul Valéry
Find the best quotes, maxims and aphorisms of Paul Valéry
Biography : French poet, essayist and philosopher.
Born: 1871 - Died: 1945
Period:
20th century
19th century
Place of birth: France
France
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Paul Valéry - Quotes



One should be light like a bird, and not like a feather.
Paul Valéry - Tel quel / 
 



One should be light like a bird, and not like a feather.

Image attribution  Background photo by Jan Solà SB on Unsplash




Men differ by what they show, and have in common what they hide.
Paul Valéry / 





Let us enrich ourselves with our mutual differences.
Paul Valéry / 



Let us enrich ourselves with our mutual differences.



The wind is rising!... We must try to live!
Paul Valéry / 



The wind is rising!... We must try to live!

Image attribution  Background photo by Saksham Gangwar on Unsplash




A very dangerous state of mind: thinking one understands.
Paul Valéry / 





The greatest liberty is born of the greatest rigor.
Paul Valéry / 





We civilizations now know ourselves mortal.
Paul Valéry - Crisis of the Mind / 
 





Science means simply the aggregate of all the recipes that are always successful. All the rest is literature.
Paul Valéry / 





Politics is the art of preventing people from busying themselves with what is their own business.
Paul Valéry - Tel quel / 
 





Sometimes I think. Sometimes I am.
Paul Valéry - Tel quel / 
 





The painter should not paint what he sees, but what will be seen.
Paul Valéry / 





Those who cannot attack the thought, instead attack the thinker.
Paul Valéry / 





The poem: a prolonged hesitation between sound and sense.
Paul Valéry - Tel quel / 
 





Great things are accomplished by men who are not conscious of the impotence of man. Such insensitiveness is precious.
Paul Valéry / 





The poet consecrates himself to and consumes himself in the task of defining and constructing a language within the language.
Paul Valéry / 





Man is absurd by what he seeks, great by what he finds.
Paul Valéry / 





Education is not confined to childhood and adolescence. Learning is not limited to the schools. Throughout life, our milieu is our teacher, at once stern and dangerous.
Paul Valéry / 





A philosophy should be portable.
Paul Valéry / 





The best way to make your dreams come true is to wake up.
A phrase often attributed to Paul Valéry - Quotation of uncertain origin /





A poem is never finished, only abandoned.
Paul Valéry /





Our judgments judge us, and nothing reveals us, exposes our weaknesses, more ingeniously than the attitude of pronouncing upon our fellows.
Paul Valéry /





God made everything out of nothing, but the nothingness shows through.
Paul Valéry /





An artist never really finishes his work, he merely abandons it.
Paul Valéry /





The folly of mistaking a paradox for a discovery, a metaphor for a proof, a torrent of verbiage for a spring of capital truths, and oneself for an oracle, is inborn in us.
Paul Valéry /





Love is being stupid together.
Paul Valéry /





Power without abuse loses its charm.
Paul Valéry /





War: a massacre of people who don't know each other for the profit of people who know each other but don't massacre each other.
Paul Valéry /





The history of thought may be summed up in these words: it is absurd by what it seeks and great by what it finds.
Paul Valéry /





In poetry everything which must be said is almost impossible to say well.
Paul Valéry /





History is the science of things which are not repeated.
Paul Valéry /






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