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Fidelity to meaning alone in translation is a kind of betrayal.

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
Alone
Kind
Translation
Translations
Fidelity
Betrayal
Meaning

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A man's true secrets are more secret to himself than they are to others.
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Long years must pass before the truths we have made for ourselves become our very flesh.
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My hand feels touched as well as it touches reality says this, and nothing more.
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The advantage of the incomprehensible is that it never loses its freshness.
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The great virtues of the German people have created more evils than idleness ever did vices
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That which has been believed by everyone, always and everywhere, has every chance of being false.
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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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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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A great man is one who leaves others at a loss after he is gone.
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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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One should be light like a bird, and not like a feather.
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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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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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At times I think and at times I am.
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The only truths which are universal are those gross enough to be thought so.
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No work of art is ever completed, it is only abandoned.
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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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The best way to make your dreams come true is to wake up.
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Serious people have few ideas. People with ideas are never serious.
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