Paul Valery Quotes - Page 5

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• 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

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• 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

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• Cognition reigns but does not rule.

  Paul Valery

  Doe, Reign, Cognition

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• Peace is a virtual, mute, sustained victory of potential powers against probable greeds

  Paul Valery

  Peace, Greed, Humanity

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• We civilizations now know ourselves mortal.

  Paul Valery

  Civilization, Knows, Mortals

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

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• The great virtues of the German people have created more evils than idleness ever did vices

  Paul Valery

  People, Evil, Insulting

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• Fidelity to meaning alone in translation is a kind of betrayal.

  Paul Valery

  Betrayal, Kind, Fidelity

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• Freedom of mind and mind itself have been most fully developed in regions where trade developed at the same time. In all ages, without exception, every intense production of art, ideas, and spiritual values has occurred in some locality where a remarkable degree of economic activity was also manifest.

  Paul Valery

  Spiritual, Art, Ideas

  "Reflections on the World Today" by Paul Valery, (pp. 167-168), 1931.

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• Though completely armed with knowledge and endowed with power, we are blind and impotent in a world we have equipped and organized-a world of which we now fear the inextricable complexity.

  Paul Valery

  Knowledge, World, Blind

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• Everything changes but the avant-garde.

  Paul Valery

  Avant Garde, Things Change

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• At times I think and at times I am.

  Paul Valery

  Time, Memories, Thinking

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• Nothing is more natural than mutual misunderstanding; the contrary is always surprising. I believe that one never agrees on anything except by mistake, and that all harmony among human beings is the happy fruit of an error.

  Paul Valery

  Mistake, Believe, Errors

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• A really free mind is scarcely attached to its opinions. If the mind cannot help giving birth to ... emotions and affections which at first appear to be inseparable from them, it reacts against these intimate phenomena it experiences against its will.

  Paul Valery

  Giving, Mind, Firsts

  "Reflections on the World Today" by Paul Valery, (p. 55), 1931.

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• 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

  Truth, Honesty, Spring

  "Introduction to the Method of Leonardo da Vinci". Book by Paul Valery, 1895.

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• Great things are accomplished by those who do not feel the impotence of man. This is a precious gift.

  Paul Valery

  Ignorance, Men, Precious Gifts

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• Growing nations should remember that, in nature, no tree, though placed in the best conditions of light, soil, and plot, can continue to grow and spread indefinitely.

  Paul Valery

  Light, Tree, Plot

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• A businessman is a hybrid of a dancer and a calculator.

  Paul Valery

  Reality, Dancer, Hybridity

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• Order always weighs on the individual. Disorder makes him wish for the police or for death. These are two extreme circumstances in which human nature is not at ease.

  Paul Valery

  Order, Two, Police

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• We must always apologize for talking painting.

  Paul Valery

  Expression, Talking, Apologizing

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• In the eyes of those lovers of perfection, a work is never finished - a word that for them has no sense - but abandoned; and this abandonment, whether to the flames or to the public (and which is the result of weariness or an obligation to deliver) is a kind of an accident to them, like the breaking off of a reflection, which fatigue, irritation, or something similar has made worthless.

  Paul Valery

  Eye, Reflection, Irritation

  "Collected Works", vol. 1,("Recollection"), 1972.

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• It is a sign of the times, and not a very good sign, that these days it is necessary - and not only necessary but urgent - to interest minds in the fate of Mind, that is to say, in their own fate.

  Paul Valery

  Fate, Mind, These Days

  "Reflections on the World Today" by Paul Valery, (p. 156), 1931.

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• Great things are accomplished by men who are not conscious of the impotence of man. Such insensitiveness is precious. But we must admit that criminals are not unlike our heroes in this respect.

  Paul Valery

  Hero, Men, Criminals

  "Reflections on the World Today" by Paul Valery, (p. 58), 1931.

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• To penetrate one's being, one must go armed to the teeth.

  Paul Valery

  Teeth, Penetrate

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• History is the most dangerous product evolved from the chemistry of the intellect. ...History will justify anything. It teaches precisely nothing, for it contains everything and furnishes examples of everything.

  Paul Valery

  History, Example, Chemistry

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• Just as water, gas, and electricity are brought into our houses from far off to satisfy our needs in response to a minimal effort, so we shall be supplied with visual or auditory images, which will appear and disappear at a simple movement of the hand, hardly more than a sign.

  Paul Valery

  Simple, Hands, Water

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