Paul Valery Quotes
"That which has been believed by everyone, always and everywhere, has every chance of being false."
- Paul Valery
(Related: Being, Chance)
"Politeness is organized indifference."
- Paul Valery
(Related: Indifference, Politeness)
"Politics is the art of preventing people from busying themselves with what is their own business."
- Paul Valery
(Related: Art, Business, Politics, People)
"Power without abuse loses its charm."
- Paul Valery
(Related: Power, Abuse, Charm)
"Science means simply the aggregate of all the recipes that are always successful. All the rest is literature."
- Paul Valery
(Related: Science, Successful, Literature, Rest)
"Serious-minded people have few ideas. People with ideas are never serious."
- Paul Valery
(Related: People, Ideas)
"That which has always been accepted by everyone, everywhere, is almost certain to be false."
- Paul Valery
"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 Valery
(Related: Discovery, Folly, Metaphor, Oracle, Paradox, Proof, Spring)
"The purpose of psychology is to give us a completely different idea of the things we know best."
- Paul Valery
(Related: Idea, Purpose, Psychology)
"The trouble with our times is that the future is not what it used to be."
- Paul Valery
(Related: Future, Trouble)
"Poe is the only impeccable writer. He was never mistaken."
- Paul Valery
(Related: Writer)
"To write regular verses destroys an infinite number of fine possibilities, but at the same time it suggests a multitude of distant and totally unexpected thoughts."
- Paul Valery
(Related: Time, Thoughts, Infinite, Possibilities)
"The best way to make your dreams come true is to wake up."
- Paul Valery
(Related: Dreams)
"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 Valery
(Related: People, Profit)
"We are enriched by our reciprocate differences."
- Paul Valery
"The universe is built on a plan the profound symmetry of which is somehow present in the inner structure of our intellect."
- Paul Valery
(Related: Intellect, Present, Universe)
"An artist never really finishes his work, he merely abandons it."
- Paul Valery
(Related: Work, Artist)
"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 Valery
(Related: History, Thought, May)
"Our judgments judge us, and nothing reveals us, exposes our weaknesses, more ingeniously than the attitude of pronouncing upon our fellows."
- Paul Valery
(Related: Attitude, Nothing)
"A great man is one who leaves others at a loss after he is gone."
- Paul Valery
(Related: Loss, Man)
"A man is a poet if difficulties inherent in his art provide him with ideas; he is not a poet if they deprive him of ideas."
- Paul Valery
(Related: Art, Ideas, Difficulties, Man)
"A man is infinitely more complicated than his thoughts."
- Paul Valery
(Related: Thoughts, Man)
"A man who is "of sound mind" is one who keeps the inner madman under lock and key."
- Paul Valery
(Related: Key, Man, Sound)
"A poem is never finished, only abandoned."
- Paul Valery
"A businessman is a hybrid of a dancer and a calculator."
- Paul Valery
"At times I think and at times I am."
- Paul Valery
"In poetry everything which must be said is almost impossible to say well."
- Paul Valery
(Related: Poetry)
"Man's great misfortune is that he has no organ, no kind of eyelid or brake, to mask or block a thought, or all thought, when he wants to."
- Paul Valery
(Related: Thought, Man, Misfortune)
"Love is being stupid together."
- Paul Valery
(Related: Love, Being)
"A man's true secrets are more secret to himself than they are to others."
- Paul Valery
(Related: Man, Secrets)
"Long years must pass before the truths we have made for ourselves become our very flesh."
- Paul Valery
(Related: Years)
"History is the science of things which are not repeated."
- Paul Valery
(Related: History, Science)
"God made everything out of nothing, but the nothingness shows through."
- Paul Valery
(Related: God, Nothing, Nothingness)
"God created man and, finding him not sufficiently alone, gave him a companion to make him feel his solitude more keenly."
- Paul Valery
(Related: God, Man, Solitude)
"Books have the same enemies as people: fire, humidity, animals, weather, and their own content."
- Paul Valery
(Related: Animals, Books, Content, Enemies, Fire, Weather)