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

Paul Valéry - Quotes

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

action

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 /

wealth

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

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 /

freedom

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

Civilization

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

science

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

politics

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 /

painting

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

thought

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

poetry

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 /

philosophy

The best way to make your dreams come true is to wake up.
Paul Valéry ? - Quotation of uncertain origin

dream

A poem is never finished, only abandoned.
Paul Valéry

poetry

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

artist

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

love

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

science

Paul Valéry - Quotes

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