The purpose of psychology is to give us a completely different idea of the things we know best. — Paul Valery Psychology Copy Share Image
“At the end of the mind, the body. But at the end of the body, the mind.” — Paul Valery Copy Share Image
The great virtues of the German people have created more evils than idleness ever did vices — Paul Valery Character Copy Share Image
Books have the same enemies as people: fire, humidity, animals, weather, and their own content. — Paul Valery Book Copy Share Image
Peace is a virtual, mute, sustained victory of potential powers against probable greeds — Paul Valery Greed Copy Share Image
“Every ironist has in mind a pretentious reader, mirror of himself.” — Paul Valéry Books Copy Share Image
Great things are accomplished by those who do not feel the impotence of man. This is a precious gift. — Paul Valery Copy Share Image
That which has been believed by everyone, always and everywhere, has every chance of being false. — Paul Valery Copy Share Image
“You have made yourself an island of time, you are a time that has become detached from that vast Time in which… — Paul Valéry Eternity Copy Share Image
A limited vocabulary, but one with which you can make numerous combinations, is better than thirty thousand words that only hamper the… — Paul Valery Action Copy Share Image
Though completely armed with knowledge and endowed with power, we are blind and impotent in a world we have equipped and organized-a… — Paul Valery Blind Copy Share Image
War: a massacre of people who don't know each other for the profit of people who know each other but don't massacre… — Paul Valery Massacre 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
A work is never completed except by some accident such as weariness, satisfaction, the need to deliver, or death: for, in relation… — Paul Valery Accident Copy Share Image
Growing nations should remember that, in nature, no tree, though placed in the best conditions of light, soil, and plot, can continue… — Paul Valery Copy Share Image
A real writer can be recognized by the fact he doesn't find words. Therefore he must search for them and while doing… — Paul Valery Facts Copy Share Image
You have certainly observed the curious fact that a given word which is perfectly clear when you hear it or use it… — Paul Valery Copy Share Image
“I am not averse to generalizing the notion of "modern" to designate a certain way of life, rather than making it purely… — 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… — Paul Valery Copy Share Image
A really free mind is scarcely attached to its opinions. If the mind cannot help giving birth to ... emotions and affections… — Paul Valery Affection Copy Share Image
The commerce of minds was necessarily the first commerce in the world, ... since before bartering things one must barter signs, and… — Paul Valery Bartering Copy Share Image
“What a pity to see a mind as great as Napoleon's devoted to trivial things such as empires, historic events, the thundering… — Paul Valéry Napoleon 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 Music 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… — Paul Valery Attitude Copy Share Image
