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Having precise ideas often leads to a man doing nothing.

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
Men
Precise
Leads
Often
Ideas
Nothing

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In poetry everything which must be said is almost impossible to say well.
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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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A great man is one who leaves others at a loss after he is gone.
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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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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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A poem is never finished, only abandoned.
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Cognition reigns but does not rule.
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A bad poem is one that vanishes into meaning.
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Every man expects some miracle — either from his mind or from his body or from someone else or from events.
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A man's true secrets are more secret to himself than they are to others.
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Books have the same enemies as people: fire, humidity, animals, weather, and their own content.
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Breath, dreams, silence, invincible calm, you triumph.
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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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Fidelity to meaning alone in translation is a kind of betrayal.
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That which has been believed by everyone, always and everywhere, has every chance of being false.
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The wind is rising ... we must attempt to live.
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History is the science of things which are not repeated.
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Long years must pass before the truths we have made for ourselves become our very flesh.
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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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