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
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.
giving balance world
The world acquires value only through its extremes and endures only through moderation; extremists make the world great, the moderates give it stability.
order two world
Two dangers constantly threaten the world: order and disorder.
mind world firsts
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.
knowledge world blind
Though completely armed with knowledge and endowed with power, we are blind and impotent in a world we have equipped and organized-a world of which we now fear the inextricable complexity.
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.
art lying science
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.