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
love-you ego hateful
If the Ego is hateful, Love your neighbor as yourself becomes a cruel irony.
dream silence triumph
Breath, dreams, silence, invincible calm, you triumph.
indifference politeness organized
Politeness is organized indifference.
being-yourself being-single men
A man who is 'of sound mind' is one who keeps the inner madman under lock and key.
science profound structure
The universe is built on a plan the profound symmetry of which is somehow present in the inner structure of our intellect.
hate mean self
We are wont to condemn self-love; but what we really mean to condemn is contrary to self-love. It is that mixture of selfishness and self-hate that permanently pursues us, that prevents us from loving others, and that prohibits us from losing ourselves.
betrayal kind fidelity
Fidelity to meaning alone in translation is a kind of betrayal.
time thinking
At times I think and at times I am.
mean views point-of-view
To hit someone means to adopt his point of view.
loneliness women solitude
God created man and, finding him not sufficiently alone, gave him a companion to make him feel his solitude more keenly.
simple complicated understood
What is simple is wrong, and what is complicated cannot be understood.
despair
[Beauty is] that which makes us despair.
peace greed victory
Peace is a virtual, mute, sustained victory of potential powers against probable greeds
giving mind firsts
A really free mind is scarcely attached to its opinions. If the mind cannot help giving birth to ... emotions and affections which at first appear to be inseparable from them, it reacts against these intimate phenomena it experiences against its will.