Thought must be hidden in the verse like nutritional virtue in a fruit. — Paul Valery Copy Share Image
“To summarize a poem or put it into prose is quite simply to misunderstand the essence of an art.” — Paul Valéry Copy Share Image
...in song the words tend to lose their significance, do often lose it, while at the other extreme, in current prose it… — Paul Valery Copy Share Image
A poet's work consists less in seeking words for his ideas than in seeking ideas for his words and predominant rhythms. — Paul Valery Copy Share Image
“I have made a similar suggestion for poetry: that one should approach it as pure sonority, reading and rereading it as a… — Paul Valéry Copy Share Image
If what has happened in the one person were communicated directly to the other, all art would collapse, all the effects of… — Paul Valery Copy Share Image
The power of verse stems from an indefinable harmony between when it says and what it is. — Paul Valery Copy Share Image
A man is a poet if difficulties inherent in his art provide him with ideas; he is not a poet if they… — Paul Valery Copy Share Image
Poetry is simply literature reduced to the essence of its active principle. It is purged of idols of every kind, of realistic… — Paul Valery Copy Share Image
In poetry everything which must be said is almost impossible to say well. — Paul Valery Copy Share Image
To write regular verses destroys an infinite number of fine possibilities, but at the same time it suggests a multitude of distant… — Paul Valery Copy Share Image
“As for the world, all reality has no other excuse for existence except to offer the poet the chance to play a… — Paul Valéry Copy Share Image
Collect all the facts that can be collected about the life of Racine and you will never learn from them the art… — Paul Valery Copy Share Image
From the moment that photography appeared, the descriptive genre began to invade Letters... In verse as in prose the décor and exterior… — Paul Valery Copy Share Image
“Poetry is a separate language, or more specifically, a language within a language.” — Paul Valéry Copy Share Image
In the eyes of those lovers of perfection, a work is never finished a word that for them has no sense but abandoned; and… — Paul Valery Copy Share Image
“O Socrates, the universe cannot for one instant endure to be only what it is. It is strange to think that that which is… — Paul Valéry Copy Share Image
It seems to me that the soul, when alone with itself and speaking to itself, uses only a small number of words, none of… — Paul Valery Copy Share Image
“I am now going to make an admission. I confess, I agree, that all these good people who protested, who laughed, who did not… — Paul Valery Copy Share Image
“Degas is one of the very few painters who have given the floor its true importance.” — Paul Valéry Copy Share Image
Politics is the art of preventing people from busying themselves with what is their own business. — Paul Valery Copy Share Image
God created man and, finding him not sufficiently alone, gave him a companion to make him feel his solitude more keenly. — Paul Valery Copy Share Image
The most ridiculous were those who, on their own authority, made themselves the judges and justices of the tribe. They seemed never to suspect… — Paul Valery Copy Share Image
Thought must be hidden in the verse like nutritional virtue in a fruit. — Paul Valery Copy Share Image
