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History is the science of things which are not repeated.

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
Repeated
History
Science
Things

More quotes by Paul Valery

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A bad poem is one that vanishes into meaning.
Paul Valery
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We hope vaguely but dread precisely.
Paul Valery
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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.
Paul Valery
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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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[Beauty is] that which makes us despair.
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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.
Paul Valery
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To see is to forget the name of the thing one sees.
Paul Valery
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That which has been believed by everyone, always and everywhere, has every chance of being false.
Paul Valery
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What is simple is wrong, and what is complicated cannot be understood.
Paul Valery
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Having precise ideas often leads to a man doing nothing.
Paul Valery
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Long years must pass before the truths we have made for ourselves become our very flesh.
Paul Valery
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Breath, dreams, silence, invincible calm, you triumph.
Paul Valery
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The purpose of psychology is to give us a completely different idea of the things we know best.
Paul Valery
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The commerce of minds was necessarily the first commerce in the world, ... since before bartering things one must barter signs, and it is necessary therefore that signs be instituted.There is no market or exchange without language. The first instrument of all commerce is language.
Paul Valery
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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.
Paul Valery
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Books have the same enemies as people: fire, humidity, animals, weather, and their own content.
Paul Valery
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to live means to lack something at every moment
Paul Valery
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What one wrote playfully, another reads with tension and passion what one wrote with tension and passion, another reads playfully.
Paul Valery
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No work of art is ever completed, it is only abandoned.
Paul Valery
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Politics is the art of preventing people from busying themselves with what is their own business.
Paul Valery