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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?

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
Question
Suggests
Knowledge
Introducing
Values
Historical
Simple
Notion
Fact
Mere
Narrated
Facts
Photography
Photographed
True
Meditation
Genesis
Value
Introduce

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The dog has made man their God, if the dog was an atheist, it would be perfect.
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The wind is rising ... we must attempt to live.
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If disorder is the rule with you, you will be penalized for installing order.
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A man's true secrets are more secret to himself than they are to others.
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A man is infinitely more complicated than his thoughts.
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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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The only truths which are universal are those gross enough to be thought so.
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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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Cognition reigns but does not rule.
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To see is to forget the name of the thing one sees.
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We need to wake up from a thought that lasts too long.
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Everything changes but the avant-garde.
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My hand feels touched as well as it touches reality says this, and nothing more.
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Breath, dreams, silence, invincible calm, you triumph.
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One should be light like a bird, and not like a feather.
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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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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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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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An artist never really finishes his work, he merely abandons it.
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[Beauty is] that which makes us despair.
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