Paul Valery
Paul Valery
Ambroise-Paul-Toussaint-Jules Valérywas a French poet, essayist, and philosopher. In addition to his poetry and fiction, his interests included aphorisms on art, history, letters, music, and current events. Valéry was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 12 different years...
NationalityFrench
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth30 October 1871
CountryFrance
equality men people
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.
dog atheist men
The dog has made man their God, if the dog was an atheist, it would be perfect.
art eye men
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.
ignorance men precious-gifts
Great things are accomplished by those who do not feel the impotence of man. This is a precious gift.
art men ideas
A man is a poet if difficulties inherent in his art provide him with ideas; he is not a poet if they deprive him of ideas.
sorry men giving
Latent in every man is a venom of amazing bitterness, a black resentment; something that curses and loathes life, a feeling of being trapped, of having trusted and been fooled, of being helpless prey to impotent rage, blind surrender, the victim of a savage, ruthless power that gives and takes away, enlists a man, drops him, promises and betrays, and -crowning injury- inflicts on him the humiliation of feeling sorry for himself.
mean men expression
The "determinist" swears that if we knew everything we should also be able to deduce and foretell the conduct of every man in every circumstance, and that is obvious enough. But the expression "know everything" means nothing.
men mad limits
Man cannot bear his own portrait. The image of his limits and his own determinacy exasperates him, drives him mad.
hero men criminals
Great things are accomplished by men who are not conscious of the impotence of man. Such insensitiveness is precious. But we must admit that criminals are not unlike our heroes in this respect.
men miracle mind
Every man expects some miracle — either from his mind or from his body or from someone else or from events.
men ideas mind
The mind has transformed the world, and the world is repaying it with interest. It has led man where he had no idea how to go.
block men want
Man's great misfortune is that he has no organ, no kind of eyelid or brake, to mask or block a thought, or all thought, when he wants to.
men ideas doing-nothing
Having precise ideas often leads to a man doing nothing.
thinking men complicated
A man is infinitely more complicated than his thoughts.