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.
About Paul Valery
Ambroise Paul Toussaint Jules Valerywas a French poet, essayist, and philosopher. In addition to his poetry and fiction (drama and dialogues), his interests included aphorisms on art, history, letters, music, and current events.
More quotes from Paul Valery
Science means simply the aggregate of all the recipes that are always successful. All the rest is literature.
French poet, essayist, and philosopher (1871-1945)
Love is being stupid together.
French poet, essayist, and philosopher (1871-1945)
The universe is built on a plan the profound symmetry of which is somehow present in the inner structure of our intellect.
French poet, essayist, and philosopher (1871-1945)
Long years must pass before the truths we have made for ourselves become our very flesh.
French poet, essayist, and philosopher (1871-1945)
War: a massacre of people who don’t know each other for the profit of people who know each other but don’t massacre each other.
French poet, essayist, and philosopher (1871-1945)
A great man is one who leaves others at a loss after he is gone.
French poet, essayist, and philosopher (1871-1945)
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.
French poet, essayist, and philosopher (1871-1945)
That which has always been accepted by everyone, everywhere, is almost certain to be false.
French poet, essayist, and philosopher (1871-1945)
God created man and, finding him not sufficiently alone, gave him a companion to make him feel his solitude more keenly.
French poet, essayist, and philosopher (1871-1945)
A poem is never finished, only abandoned.
French poet, essayist, and philosopher (1871-1945)
Books have the same enemies as people: fire, humidity, animals, weather, and their own content.
French poet, essayist, and philosopher (1871-1945)
Two dangers constantly threaten the world: order and disorder.
French poet, essayist, and philosopher (1871-1945)
Power without abuse loses its charm.
French poet, essayist, and philosopher (1871-1945)
Serious-minded people have few ideas. People with ideas are never serious.
French poet, essayist, and philosopher (1871-1945)
The trouble with our times is that the future is not what it used to be.
French poet, essayist, and philosopher (1871-1945)
We are enriched by our reciprocate differences.
French poet, essayist, and philosopher (1871-1945)
That which has been believed by everyone, always and everywhere, has every chance of being false.
French poet, essayist, and philosopher (1871-1945)
The history of thought may be summed up in these words: it is absurd by what it seeks and great by what it finds.
French poet, essayist, and philosopher (1871-1945)
History is the science of things which are not repeated.
French poet, essayist, and philosopher (1871-1945)
A businessman is a hybrid of a dancer and a calculator.
French poet, essayist, and philosopher (1871-1945)
At times I think and at times I am.
French poet, essayist, and philosopher (1871-1945)
To write regular verses destroys an infinite number of fine possibilities, but at the same time it suggests a multitude of distant and totally unexpected thoughts.
French poet, essayist, and philosopher (1871-1945)
An artist never really finishes his work, he merely abandons it.
French poet, essayist, and philosopher (1871-1945)
Poe is the only impeccable writer. He was never mistaken.
French poet, essayist, and philosopher (1871-1945)
Politics is the art of preventing people from busying themselves with what is their own business.
French poet, essayist, and philosopher (1871-1945)
In poetry everything which must be said is almost impossible to say well.
French poet, essayist, and philosopher (1871-1945)
A man’s true secrets are more secret to himself than they are to others.
French poet, essayist, and philosopher (1871-1945)
A man who is “of sound mind” is one who keeps the inner madman under lock and key.
French poet, essayist, and philosopher (1871-1945)
Politeness is organized indifference.
French poet, essayist, and philosopher (1871-1945)
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.
French poet, essayist, and philosopher (1871-1945)
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.
French poet, essayist, and philosopher (1871-1945)
God made everything out of nothing, but the nothingness shows through.
French poet, essayist, and philosopher (1871-1945)
The best way to make your dreams come true is to wake up.
French poet, essayist, and philosopher (1871-1945)
Our judgments judge us, and nothing reveals us, exposes our weaknesses, more ingeniously than the attitude of pronouncing upon our fellows.
French poet, essayist, and philosopher (1871-1945)
A man is infinitely more complicated than his thoughts.
French poet, essayist, and philosopher (1871-1945)
The purpose of psychology is to give us a completely different idea of the things we know best.
French poet, essayist, and philosopher (1871-1945)