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Liberty is the hardest test that one can inflict on a people. To know how to be free is not given equally to all men and all nations.

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
Tests
Hardest
Liberty
Nations
Inflict
Free
Propaganda
Given
Equally
Men
Equality
People
Test

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Science means simply the aggregate of all the recipes that are always successful. All the rest is literature.
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It is a sign of the times, and not a very good sign, that these days it is necessary - and not only necessary but urgent - to interest minds in the fate of Mind, that is to say, in their own fate.
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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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If disorder is the rule with you, you will be penalized for installing order.
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What is simple is false and what is not is useless.
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Politics is the art of preventing people from busying themselves with what is their own business.
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Thanks to photography, the eye grew accustomed to anticipate what it should see and to see it and it learned not to see nonexistent things which, hitherto, it had seen so clearly.
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Oh, hasten not this loving act, Rapture where self and not-self meet: My life has been the awaiting you, Your footfall was my own heart's beat.
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We hope vaguely but dread precisely.
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The universe is built on a plan the profound symmetry of which is somehow present in the inner structure of our intellect.
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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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We are wont to condemn self-love but what we really mean to condemn is contrary to self-love. It is that mixture of selfishness and self-hate that permanently pursues us, that prevents us from loving others, and that prohibits us from losing ourselves.
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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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[Beauty is] that which makes us despair.
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We need to wake up from a thought that lasts too long.
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History is the science of what never happens twice.
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The power of verse stems from an indefinable harmony between when it says and what it is.
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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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Long years must pass before the truths we have made for ourselves become our very flesh.
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