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
art poetry harmony
The power of verse stems from an indefinable harmony between when it says and what it is.
art poetry disappear
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.
art poetry fruit
Thought must be hidden in the verse like nutritional virtue in a fruit.
art poetry
A bad poem is one that vanishes into meaning.
art ideas poetry
A poet's work consists less in seeking words for his ideas than in seeking ideas for his words and predominant rhythms.
simple
Everything that is simple is theoratically false, everything that is complicated is pragmatically useless.
deeply moment others
What others think of us would be of little moment did it not, when known, so deeply tinge what we think of ourselves.
future
The future, like everything else, is not what it used to be.
people
Serious-minded people have few ideas. People with ideas are never serious.
god shows void
God made everything out of the void, but the void shows through
consumed energy power ten ultimate uses
The ultimate ""computer,"" our own brain, uses only ten watts of power -- one-tenth the energy consumed by a hundred-watt bulb.
civilization knows mortals
We civilizations now know ourselves mortal.
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.
quality world size
In the physical world, one cannot increase the size or quantity of anything without changing its quality. Similar figures exist only in pure geometry.