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Bookmark this pagePaul Valery
A man is infinitely more complicated than his thoughts.
A man is infinitely more complicated than his thoughts.
...in song the words tend to lose their significance, do often lose it, while at the other extreme, in current prose it is the m
...in song the words tend to lose their significance, do often lose it, while at the other extreme, in current prose it is the musical value that tends to disappear - so that verse stands symmetrically, as it were, between song, on the one hand, and prose on the other - and is thus admirably and delicately balanced between the sensual and the intellectual power of language.
Books have the same enemies as people: fire, humidity, animals, weather, and their own content.
Books have the same enemies as people: fire, humidity, animals, weather, and their own content.
That which has always been accepted by everyone, everywhere, is almost certain to be false.
That which has always been accepted by everyone, everywhere, is almost certain to be false.
What others think of us would be of little moment did it not, when known, so deeply tinge what we think of ourselves.
What others think of us would be of little moment did it not, when known, so deeply tinge what we think of ourselves.
The folly of mistaking a paradox for a discovery, a metaphor for a proof, a torrent of verbiage for a spring of capital truths,
The folly of mistaking a paradox for a discovery, a metaphor for a proof, a torrent of verbiage for a spring of capital truths, and oneself for an oracle, is inborn in us.
The folly of mistaking a paradox for a discovery, a metaphor for a proof, a torrent of verbiage for a spring of capital truths,
The folly of mistaking a paradox for a discovery, a metaphor for a proof, a torrent of verbiage for a spring of capital truths, and oneself for an oracle, is inborn in us.
A painter should not paint what he sees but what should be seen.
A painter should not paint what he sees but what should be seen.
