Paul Valéry quotes

Books have the same enemies as people: fire, humidity, animals, weather, and their own content. (Paul Valéry)
One should be light like a bird, and not like a feather.
Paul Valéry
The trouble with our times is that the future is not what it used to be.
Paul Valéry
The painter should not paint what he sees, but what will be seen.
Paul Valéry
Two dangers constantly threaten the world: order and disorder.
Paul Valéry
That which has always been accepted by everyone, everywhere, is almost certain to be false.
Paul Valéry
A man is infinitely more complicated than his thoughts.
Paul Valéry
Politeness is organized indifference.
Paul Valéry
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 Valéry
Conscience reigns but it does not govern.
Paul Valéry
God made everything out of nothing, but the nothingness shows through. (Paul Valéry)
A poem is never finished; it is only abandoned.
Paul Valéry
The best way to make your dreams come true is to wake up.
Paul Valéry
Science means simply the aggregate of all the recipes that are always successful. All the rest is literature.
Paul Valéry
Poe is the only impeccable writer. He was never mistaken.
Paul Valéry
The purpose of psychology is to give us a completely different idea of the things we know best.
Paul Valéry
Power without abuse loses its charm.
Paul Valéry
God created man and, finding him not sufficiently alone, gave him a companion to make him feel his solitude more keenly.
Paul Valéry
Politics is the art of preventing people from busying themselves with what is their own business.
Paul Valéry
At times I think and at times I am.
Paul Valéry
War: a massacre of people who don't know each other for the profit of people who know each other but don't massacre each other. (Paul Valéry)
The history of thought may be summed up in these words: it is absurd by what it seeks and great by what it finds.
Paul Valéry
Love is being stupid together.
Paul Valéry
If the state is strong, it crushes us. If it is weak, we perish.
Paul Valéry
A businessman is a hybrid of a dancer and a calculator.
Paul Valéry