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A bad poem is one that vanishes into meaning.

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
Vanishes
Poem
Meaning
Poetry
Art

More quotes by Paul Valery

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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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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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to live means to lack something at every moment
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What golden hour of life, what glittering moment will ever equal the pain its loss can cause?
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The wind is rising ... we must attempt to live.
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The mere notion of photography, when we introduce it into our meditation on the genesis of historical knowledge and its true value, suggests the simple question: Could such and such a fact, as it is narrated here, have been photographed?
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Two dangers constantly threaten the world: order and disorder.
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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.
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The great virtues of the German people have created more evils than idleness ever did vices
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That which has always been accepted by everyone, everywhere, is almost certain to be false.
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God created man and, finding him not sufficiently alone, gave him a companion to make him feel his solitude more keenly.
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Fidelity to meaning alone in translation is a kind of betrayal.
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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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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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The advantage of the incomprehensible is that it never loses its freshness.
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That which has been believed by everyone, always and everywhere, has every chance of being false.
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Breath, dreams, silence, invincible calm, you triumph.
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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.
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In poetry everything which must be said is almost impossible to say well.
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Having precise ideas often leads to a man doing nothing.
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