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History is the most dangerous product evolved from the chemistry of the intellect. ...History will justify anything. It teaches precisely nothing, for it contains everything and furnishes examples of everything.

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
Dangerous
Teaches
Teach
Precisely
History
Chemistry
Anything
Justify
Everything
Intellect
Furnishes
Nothing
Product
Examples
Products
Evolved
Example
Contains

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That which has been believed by everyone, always and everywhere, has every chance of being false.
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Man is only man at the surface. Remove the skin, dissect, and immediately you come to machinery.
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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.
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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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A man is infinitely more complicated than his thoughts.
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Oh, hasten not this loving act, Rapture where self and not-self meet: My life has been the awaiting you, Your footfall was my own heart's beat.
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To see is to forget the name of the thing one sees.
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Having precise ideas often leads to a man doing nothing.
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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.
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Liberty is the hardest test that one can inflict on a people. To know how to be free is not given equally to all men and all nations.
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An artist never really finishes his work, he merely abandons it.
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Science is a collection of successful recipes.
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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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A bad poem is one that vanishes into meaning.
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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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That which has always been accepted by everyone, everywhere, is almost certain to be false.
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One should be light like a bird, and not like a feather.
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[Beauty is] that which makes us despair.
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Politics is the art of preventing people from busying themselves with what is their own business.
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If what has happened in the one person were communicated directly to the other, all art would collapse, all the effects of art would disappear.
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