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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.

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
Words
Predominant
Art
Rhythms
Ideas
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Rhythm
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A man's true secrets are more secret to himself than they are to others.
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Two dangers constantly threaten the world: order and disorder.
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Having precise ideas often leads to a man doing nothing.
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to live means to lack something at every moment
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Collect all the facts that can be collected about the life of Racine and you will never learn from them the art of his verse. All criticism is dominated by the outworn theory that the man is the cause of the work as in the eyes of the law the criminal is the cause of the crime. Far rather are they both the effects.
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To see is to forget the name of the thing one sees.
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An artist never really finishes his work, he merely abandons it.
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History is the science of what never happens twice.
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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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Science is a collection of successful recipes.
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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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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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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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Everything changes but the avant-garde.
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War: a massacre of people who don't know each other for the profit of people who know each other but don't massacre each other.
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In poetry everything which must be said is almost impossible to say well.
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Advertising has annihilated the power of the most powerful adjectives.
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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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A bad poem is one that vanishes into meaning.
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If disorder is the rule with you, you will be penalized for installing order.
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