Danse-and-the-soul Quote by Paul Valéry

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

“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

We civilizations now know ourselves mortal.

— Paul Valery

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

Serious people have few ideas. People with ideas are never serious.

— Paul Valery

“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

“Degas is one of the very few painters who have given the floor its true importance.”

— Paul Valéry

Politics is the art of preventing people from busying themselves with what is their own business.

— Paul Valery

God created man and, finding him not sufficiently alone, gave him a companion to make him feel his solitude more keenly.

— Paul Valery

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

The folly of mistaking oneself for an oracle is built right into us.

— Paul Valery

Thought must be hidden in the verse like nutritional virtue in a fruit.

— Paul Valery