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

More quotes by Paul Valery

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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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to live means to lack something at every moment
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Science is feasible when the variables are few and can be enumerated when their combinations are distinct and clear. We are tending toward the condition of science and aspiring to do it. The artist works out his own formulas the interest of science lies in the art of making science.
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A businessman is a hybrid of a dancer and a calculator.
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Politics is the art of preventing people from busying themselves with what is their own business.
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At times I think and at times I am.
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The great virtues of the German people have created more evils than idleness ever did vices
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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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Advertising has annihilated the power of the most powerful adjectives.
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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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An artist never really finishes his work, he merely abandons it.
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If disorder is the rule with you, you will be penalized for installing order.
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What is simple is wrong, and what is complicated cannot be understood.
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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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The mind has transformed the world, and the world is repaying it with interest. It has led man where he had no idea how to go.
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Having precise ideas often leads to a man doing nothing.
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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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The wind is rising ... we must attempt to live.
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The purpose of psychology is to give us a completely different idea of the things we know best.
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Fidelity to meaning alone in translation is a kind of betrayal.
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