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It is a law of nature that we defend ourselves from one affection only by means of another.

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
Affection
Law
Means
Another
Nature
Mean
Defend

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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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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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One should be light like a bird, and not like a feather.
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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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History is the science of things which are not repeated.
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We hope vaguely but dread precisely.
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A great man is one who leaves others at a loss after he is gone.
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History is the science of what never happens twice.
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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.
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Having precise ideas often leads to a man doing nothing.
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If disorder is the rule with you, you will be penalized for installing order.
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Freedom of mind and mind itself have been most fully developed in regions where trade developed at the same time. In all ages, without exception, every intense production of art, ideas, and spiritual values has occurred in some locality where a remarkable degree of economic activity was also manifest.
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Politics is the art of preventing people from busying themselves with what is their own business.
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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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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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The only truths which are universal are those gross enough to be thought so.
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Books have the same enemies as people: fire, humidity, animals, weather, and their own content.
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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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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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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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