Quotes from Paul Valery

Ces jours qui te semblent vides Et perdus pour l'univers Ont des racines avides Qui travaillent les déserts

Admirable man, who know teeth by dreams, think you that all those of philosophers are decayed?

Modern man no longer works at what cannot be abbreviated

History is the most dangerous product evolved from the chemistry of the intellect.

An alone man is always badly accompanied.

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

A difficulty is a light ; an insurmountable difficulty is a sun .

As for the world, all reality has no other excuse for existence except to offer the poet the chance to play a sublime match against it -- a match that is list in advance.

To summarize a poem or put it into prose is quite simply to misunderstand the essence of an art.

The attentive reading of a book is really a continuous commentary, a succession of notes that emanate from the inner voice.

We shall soon have to build heavily insulated cloisters where neither radio waves nor newspapers can come, in which ignorance of all politics will be guarded and cultivated. Speed, numbers, effects of surprise, contrast, repetition, size novelty, and credulity will be despised there. And thither, on certain days, visitors will come, to look through the iron bars at a few specimens of free men.

Une philosophie doit etre portative.

The wind is rising... we must attempt to live.

Come, speak low. The dark is not so dark.

But Socrates cannot but have been meditating upon something?... Can he ever remain solitary with himself -- and silent to his very soul!

Each of them, all unknowing, fairly gives its due to each chance of life, to each germ of death within itself.

Entrer chez les gens pour déconcerter leurs idées, leur faire la surprise d'être surpris de ce qu'ils font, de ce qu'ils pensent, et qu'ils n'ont jamais conçu différent, c'est, au moyen de l'ingénuité feinte ou réelle, donner à ressentir toute la relativité d'une civilisation, d'une confiance habituelle dans l'ordre établi.

In the eyes of those who anxiously seek perfection, a work is never truly completed—a word that for them has no sense—but abandoned.

Ce qu'il y a de plus profond dans l'homme, c'est la peau.

La guerre, c'est le massacre de gens qui ne se connaissent pas, au profit de gens qui se connaissent et ne se massacrent pas.

Kimi zaman penceredeki manzara, duvara as?lm?? bir tablodur yaln?zca; kimi zaman oda, orada olmam? de?il, bütünü görmemi engelleyen, a?açlar aras?nda bir kabuktan ba?ka bir ?ey de?ildir.

There are pigeonholes in the brain with labels on them such as: To be looked into when I feel like it; Never to be thought of; Useless to follow up; Contents as yet unexamined; A blind alley; A rich vein, but exploitable only in another existence; Urgent; Dangerous; A hard nut to crack; Impossible; Discarded; Put in storage; None of my business; In my line; A teaser…and so forth.

Le vent se léve! ... il faut tenter de vivre!

Qui ne peut attaquer le raisonnement, attaque le raisonneur.