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An artist never really finishes his work, he merely abandons it.

Paul Valery

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Paul Valery
Age: 73 †
Born: 1871
Born: October 30
Died: 1945
Died: July 20
Essayist
Journalist
Literary Critic
Philosopher
Poet
Professor
Writer
Cette
Paul Ambroise Valéry
Paul Ambroise Valery
Paul-Ambroise Valéry
Paul Valery
Paul-Ambroise Valery
Abandon
Artistic
Merely
Artist
Art
Work
Abandons
Really
Finishes
Never
Artistry

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To see is to forget the name of the thing one sees.
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The only truths which are universal are those gross enough to be thought so.
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It seems to me that the soul, when alone with itself and speaking to itself, uses only a small number of words, none of them extraordinary.
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[Beauty is] that which makes us despair.
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God created man and, finding him not sufficiently alone, gave him a companion to make him feel his solitude more keenly.
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It is a sign of the times, and not a very good sign, that these days it is necessary - and not only necessary but urgent - to interest minds in the fate of Mind, that is to say, in their own fate.
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What golden hour of life, what glittering moment will ever equal the pain its loss can cause?
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Just as water, gas, and electricity are brought into our houses from far off to satisfy our needs in response to a minimal effort, so we shall be supplied with visual or auditory images, which will appear and disappear at a simple movement of the hand, hardly more than a sign.
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No work of art is ever completed, it is only abandoned.
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It is a law of nature that we defend ourselves from one affection only by means of another.
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What one wrote playfully, another reads with tension and passion what one wrote with tension and passion, another reads playfully.
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to live means to lack something at every moment
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The best way to make your dreams come true is to wake up.
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The universe is built on a plan the profound symmetry of which is somehow present in the inner structure of our intellect.
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We are wont to condemn self-love but what we really mean to condemn is contrary to self-love. It is that mixture of selfishness and self-hate that permanently pursues us, that prevents us from loving others, and that prohibits us from losing ourselves.
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Collect all the facts that can be collected about the life of Racine and you will never learn from them the art of his verse. All criticism is dominated by the outworn theory that the man is the cause of the work as in the eyes of the law the criminal is the cause of the crime. Far rather are they both the effects.
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The world acquires value only through its extremes and endures only through moderation extremists make the world great, the moderates give it stability.
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The great virtues of the German people have created more evils than idleness ever did vices
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Politics is the art of preventing people from busying themselves with what is their own business.
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In poetry everything which must be said is almost impossible to say well.
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