Quote

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.

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
Language
Instrument
Firsts
Necessarily
Without
Instruments
Bartering
First
Market
Barter
Must
Minds
Instituted
Mind
Necessary
Exchange
Things
Therefore
Signs
World
Since
Commerce

More quotes by Paul Valery

Image
The purpose of psychology is to give us a completely different idea of the things we know best.
Paul Valery
Image
We hope vaguely but dread precisely.
Paul Valery
Image
One should be light like a bird, and not like a feather.
Paul Valery
Image
No work of art is ever completed, it is only abandoned.
Paul Valery
Image
History is the science of things which are not repeated.
Paul Valery
Image
What is simple is false and what is not is useless.
Paul Valery
Image
Having precise ideas often leads to a man doing nothing.
Paul Valery
Image
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.
Paul Valery
Image
Breath, dreams, silence, invincible calm, you triumph.
Paul Valery
Image
Cognition reigns but does not rule.
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
Photography invites one to give up any attempt to delineate such things as can delineate themselves.
Paul Valery
Image
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.
Paul Valery
Image
In poetry everything which must be said is almost impossible to say well.
Paul Valery
Image
Stupidity is not my strong suit.
Paul Valery
Image
History is the science of what never happens twice.
Paul Valery
Image
If what has happened in the one person were communicated directly to the other, all art would collapse, all the effects of art would disappear.
Paul Valery
Image
Man is only man at the surface. Remove the skin, dissect, and immediately you come to machinery.
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
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.
Paul Valery