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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
Betrayal
Meaning
Alone
Kind
Translation
Translations
Fidelity

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No work of art is ever completed, it is only abandoned.
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The mere notion of photography, when we introduce it into our meditation on the genesis of historical knowledge and its true value, suggests the simple question: Could such and such a fact, as it is narrated here, have been photographed?
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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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Everything changes but the avant-garde.
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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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The wind is rising ... we must attempt to live.
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The great virtues of the German people have created more evils than idleness ever did vices
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Books have the same enemies as people: fire, humidity, animals, weather, and their own content.
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The advantage of the incomprehensible is that it never loses its freshness.
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A poem is never finished, only abandoned.
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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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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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A great man is one who leaves others at a loss after he is gone.
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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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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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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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Long years must pass before the truths we have made for ourselves become our very flesh.
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There is a difference if we see something with a pencil in our hand or without one.
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Politics is the art of preventing people from busying themselves with what is their own business.
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History is the science of what never happens twice.
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