Paul Valéry quotes - page 3
Man discerns three great things in the All: he finds there his body, he finds there his soul-and then there is the rest of the world. Between these things there is an unceasing commerce, and sometimes even a confusion arises; but always after a certain time has elapsed, these three things come to be clearly distinguished from one another.
Paul Valéry
Now, of all acts the most complete is that of constructing. A work demands love, meditation, obedience to your finest thought, the invention of laws by your soul, and many other things that it draws miraculously from your own self, which did not suspect that it possessed them. This work proceeds from the most intimate center of your existence, and yet it is distinct from yourself.
Paul Valéry
Nay, who knows, Phaedrus, if the efforts of humans in their search for God, the observances, the prayers they essay, their obstinate will to discover the most efficacious... who knows if mortals will not finally discover a certitude-or an incertitude-stable and in exact conformity with their nature, if not with the very nature of God?
Paul Valéry
I said that to invite minds to concern themselves with Mind and its destiny was a sign and symptom of the times. Would that idea have occurred to me, had not a whole body of impressions been sufficiently significant and powerful to reflect themselves in me, and for that reflection to become action? And that action, which consists of expressing it in your presence, would not perhaps have been accomplished had I not felt that my impressions were those of many other people, that the sensation of a diminution of mind, of a menace to culture, of a twilight of the most pure gods was a sensation which imposed itself with increasing strength on all those who are capable of feeling something in the order of superior values of which we are speaking.
Paul Valéry
There is a value called "mind” as there is a value oil, wheat, or gold. ... One can invest in that value, one can "follow” it as they say on the stock exchange; one can watch its fluctuations in I know not what price list which is the world's general opinion of it. ... All these rising and falling values constitute the great market of human affairs. And of these the unfortunate value mind does not stop falling.
Paul Valéry
But what, Phaedrus, is the contrary of a dream if not some other dream?... A dream of vigilance and tension dreamt by Reason herself!-And what would such a Reason dream?-If a Reason were to dream-a Reason hard, erect, eyes armed, mouth closed, as though mistress of her lips-would not the dream she dreamt be what we see now-this world of exact forces and studied illusions?-A dream, a dream, but a dream interpenetrated with symmetries, all order, acts and sequences!
Paul Valéry
It is therefore reasonable to think that the creations of man are made either with a view to his body, and that is the principle we call utility, or with a view to his soul, and that is what he seeks under the name of beauty. But, further, since he who constructs or creates has to deal with the rest of the world and with the movement of nature, which both tend perpetually to dissolve, corrupt or upset what he makes, he must recognize and seek to communicate to his works a third principle, that expresses the resistance he wishes them to offer to their destiny, which is to perish. So he seeks solidity or lastingness.
Paul Valéry
