Quote

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

Paul Valery

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Translation
Translations
Fidelity
Betrayal
Meaning
Alone
Kind

More quotes by Paul Valery

Image
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.
Paul Valery
Image
Our judgments judge us, and nothing reveals us, exposes our weaknesses, more ingeniously than the attitude of pronouncing upon our fellows.
Paul Valery
Image
A great man is one who leaves others at a loss after he is gone.
Paul Valery
Image
A really free mind is scarcely attached to its opinions. If the mind cannot help giving birth to ... emotions and affections which at first appear to be inseparable from them, it reacts against these intimate phenomena it experiences against its will.
Paul Valery
Image
The universe is built on a plan the profound symmetry of which is somehow present in the inner structure of our intellect.
Paul Valery
Image
I thought it necessary to study history, even to study it deeply, in order to obtain a clear meaning of our immediate time.
Paul Valery
Image
Books have the same enemies as people: fire, humidity, animals, weather, and their own content.
Paul Valery
Image
The best way to make your dreams come true is to wake up.
Paul Valery
Image
Every man expects some miracle — either from his mind or from his body or from someone else or from events.
Paul Valery
Image
A bad poem is one that vanishes into meaning.
Paul Valery
Image
Politics is the art of preventing people from busying themselves with what is their own business.
Paul Valery
Image
to live means to lack something at every moment
Paul Valery
Image
Cognition reigns but does not rule.
Paul Valery
Image
Advertising has annihilated the power of the most powerful adjectives.
Paul Valery
Image
That which has always been accepted by everyone, everywhere, is almost certain to be false.
Paul Valery
Image
The only truths which are universal are those gross enough to be thought so.
Paul Valery
Image
Follow the path of your aroused thought, and you will soon meet this infernal inscription: There is nothing so beautiful as that which does not exist.
Paul Valery
Image
We hope vaguely but dread precisely.
Paul Valery
Image
A man is infinitely more complicated than his thoughts.
Paul Valery
Image
What is simple is wrong, and what is complicated cannot be understood.
Paul Valery