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Our judgments judge us, and nothing reveals us, exposes our weaknesses, more ingeniously than the attitude of pronouncing upon our fellows.

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
Judge
Ingeniously
Weakness
Pronouncing
Judging
Exposes
Judgment
Judgments
Attitude
Weaknesses
Upon
Reveals
Reality
Judgement
Nothing
Fellows

More quotes by Paul Valery

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The most ridiculous were those who, on their own authority, made themselves the judges and justices of the tribe. They seemed never to suspect that our judgments judge us, and that nothing exposes our weaknesses and reveals ourselves more naively than the attitude of pronouncing upon our neighbors.
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Breath, dreams, silence, invincible calm, you triumph.
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[Beauty is] that which makes us despair.
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The mere notion of photography, when we introduce it into our meditation on the genesis of historical knowledge and its true value, suggests the simple question: Could such and such a fact, as it is narrated here, have been photographed?
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I thought it necessary to study history, even to study it deeply, in order to obtain a clear meaning of our immediate time.
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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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Books have the same enemies as people: fire, humidity, animals, weather, and their own content.
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A really free mind is scarcely attached to its opinions. If the mind cannot help giving birth to ... emotions and affections which at first appear to be inseparable from them, it reacts against these intimate phenomena it experiences against its will.
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Growing nations should remember that, in nature, no tree, though placed in the best conditions of light, soil, and plot, can continue to grow and spread indefinitely.
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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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History is the science of things which are not repeated.
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There are two ways to aquire the niceties of life: 1) To produce them or 2) To plunder them. When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living together in society, they create for themselves in the course of time, a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it.
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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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Two dangers constantly threaten the world: order and disorder.
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A poet's work consists less in seeking words for his ideas than in seeking ideas for his words and predominant rhythms.
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to live means to lack something at every moment
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No work of art is ever completed, it is only abandoned.
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A poem is never finished, only abandoned.
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The wind is rising ... we must attempt to live.
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Nothing is more natural than mutual misunderstanding the contrary is always surprising. I believe that one never agrees on anything except by mistake, and that all harmony among human beings is the happy fruit of an error.
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