Paul Valery Quotes - Page 4

Quotes about:

• A man is infinitely more complicated than his thoughts.

  Paul Valery

  Men, Thinking, Complicated

  16 Copy quote

• If what has happened in the one person were communicated directly to the other, all art would collapse, all the effects of art would disappear.

  Paul Valery

  Art, Poetry, Disappear

  11 Copy quote

• The purpose of psychology is to give us a completely different idea of the things we know best.

  Paul Valery

  Ideas, Giving, Psychology

  "Tel Quel". Book by Paul Valery, 1943.

  26 Copy quote

• What one wrote playfully, another reads with tension and passion; what one wrote with tension and passion, another reads playfully.

  Paul Valery

  Passion, Tension

  7 Copy quote

• The very object of an art, the principle of its artifice, is precisely to impart the impression of an ideal state in which the man who reaches it will be capable of spontaneously producing, with no effort of hesitation, a magnificent and wonderfully ordered expression of his nature and our destinies.

  Paul Valery

  Art, Destiny, Men

  "The Art of Poetry". Book by Paul Valery, 1958.

  13 Copy quote

• One had to be a Newton to notice that the moon is falling, when everyone sees that it doesn't fall.

  Paul Valery

  Fall, Science, Moon

  8 Copy quote

• Poetry is simply literature reduced to the essence of its active principle. It is purged of idols of every kind, of realistic illusions, of any conceivable equivocation between the language of "truth" and the language of "creation."

  Paul Valery

  Idols, Essence, Principles

  "Littérature". Book by Paul Valery, 1930.

  6 Copy quote

• To hit someone means to adopt his point of view.

  Paul Valery

  Mean, Views, Point Of View

  14 Copy quote

• That which has been believed by everyone, always and everywhere, has every chance of being false.

  Paul Valery

  Atheism, Chance, Belief

  7 Copy quote

• Man is only man at the surface. Remove the skin, dissect, and immediately you come to machinery.

  Paul Valery

  Men, Skins, Surface

  10 Copy quote

• You have certainly observed the curious fact that a given word which is perfectly clear when you hear it or use it in everyday language, and which does not give rise to any difficulty when it is engaged in the rapid movement of an ordinary sentence becomes magically embarrassing, introduces a strange resistance, frustrates any effort at definition as soon as you take it out of circulation to examine it separately and look for its meaning after taking away its instantaneous function.

  Paul Valery

  Giving, Effort, Everyday

  10 Copy quote

• In the physical world, one cannot increase the size or quantity of anything without changing its quality. Similar figures exist only in pure geometry.

  Paul Valery

  Math, Quality, World

  7 Copy quote

• A work is never completed except by some accident such as weariness, satisfaction, the need to deliver, or death: for, in relation to who or what is making it, it can only be one stage in a series of inner transformations.

  Paul Valery

  Death, Satisfaction, Needs

  "Collected Works", vol. 1, translated by David Paul, 1972.

  5 Copy quote

• Science is feasible when the variables are few and can be enumerated; when their combinations are distinct and clear. We are tending toward the condition of science and aspiring to do it. The artist works out his own formulas; the interest of science lies in the art of making science.

  Paul Valery

  Art, Lying, Science

  "Moralités". Book by Paul Valery, 1932.

  7 Copy quote

• All nations have present, or past, or future reasons for thinking themselves incomparable.

  Paul Valery

  Past, Thinking, Reason

  19 Copy quote

• Conscience reigns but it does not govern.

  Paul Valery

  Doe, Reign, Conscience

  8 Copy quote

• Oh, hasten not this loving act, Rapture where self and not-self meet: My life has been the awaiting you, Your footfall was my own heart's beat.

  Paul Valery

  Love, Heart, Self

  16 Copy quote

• If disorder is the rule with you, you will be penalized for installing order.

  Paul Valery

  Order, Disorder, Human Condition

  9 Copy quote

• Latent in every man is a venom of amazing bitterness, a black resentment; something that curses and loathes life, a feeling of being trapped, of having trusted and been fooled, of being helpless prey to impotent rage, blind surrender, the victim of a savage, ruthless power that gives and takes away, enlists a man, drops him, promises and betrays, and -crowning injury- inflicts on him the humiliation of feeling sorry for himself.

  Paul Valery

  Sorry, Men, Giving

  18 Copy quote

• Whatever we succeed in doing is a transformation of something we have failed to do. Thus, when we fail, it is only because we have given up.

  Paul Valery

  Failure, Succeed, Transformation

  8 Copy quote

• Cognition reigns but does not rule.

  Paul Valery

  Doe, Reign, Cognition

  4 Copy quote

• A poet's work consists less in seeking words for his ideas than in seeking ideas for his words and predominant rhythms.

  Paul Valery

  Art, Ideas, Poetry

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  Art, Men, Ideas

  8 Copy quote

• His heart is a desert island.... The whole scope, the whole energy of his mind surround and protect him; his depths isolate him and guard him against the truth. He flatters himself that he is entirely alone there.... Patience, dear lady. Perhaps, one day, he will discover some footprint on the sand.... What holy and happy terror, what salutary fright, once he recognizes in that pure sign of grace that his island is mysteriously inhabited!

  Paul Valery

  Heart, Islands, Grace

  15 Copy quote

• We civilizations now know ourselves mortal.

  Paul Valery

  Civilization, Knows, Mortals

  "La Crise de l'Esprit". Book by Paul Valery, 1919.

  4 Copy quote

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