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In the physical world, one cannot increase the size or quantity of anything without changing its quality. Similar figures exist only in pure geometry.

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
Exist
Mathematical
Pure
Math
Quality
Changing
Cannot
Mathematics
Anything
Size
Without
Increase
Geometry
World
Physical
Quantity
Figures
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Science is a collection of successful recipes.
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An artist never really finishes his work, he merely abandons it.
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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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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.
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My hand feels touched as well as it touches reality says this, and nothing more.
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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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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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To see is to forget the name of the thing one sees.
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There are two ways to aquire the niceties of life: 1) To produce them or 2) To plunder them. When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living together in society, they create for themselves in the course of time, a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it.
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Poems are never finished - just abandoned
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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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[Beauty is] that which makes us despair.
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What is simple is false and what is not is useless.
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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 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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History is the science of things which are not repeated.
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Having precise ideas often leads to a man doing nothing.
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It is a law of nature that we defend ourselves from one affection only by means of another.
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