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Paul Valéry: 178 quotes130 likes

“Man's deepest glances are those that go out to the void. They converge beyond the All.”

Socrates, p. 141
Eupalinos ou l'architecte (1921)

“Most people in reasoning, dear Phaedrus, use notions that not only are "ready-made," but have actually been made by nobody. No one is responsible for them, and so they serve everyone badly.”

Paul Valéry

Socrates, p. 137
Eupalinos ou l'architecte (1921)

“In the Beginning was the Fable.”

Paul Valéry

Tityrus, p. 169, quoting "a philosopher whose name I have forgotten". The philosopher is Valéry himself, who used this phrase at the end of his essay on Poe's Eureka, and elsewhere (Dialogues, textual note on p. 195).
Dialogue de l'arbre (1943)

“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.”

Paul Valéry

Le mal de prendre une hypallage pour une découverte, une métaphore pour une démonstration, un vomissement de mots pour un torrent de connaissances capitales, et soi-même pour un oracle, ce mal naît avec nous.
Introduction to the Method of Leonardo da Vinci (1895)

“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.”

Paul Valéry

Source: Regards sur le monde actuel [Reflections on the World Today] (1931), p. 166

“The being filled with wonder is lovely, like a flower.”

Paul Valéry

Lucretius, p. 163
Dialogue de l'arbre (1943)

“If the state is strong, it crushes us. If it is weak, we perish.”

Paul Valéry

History and Politics http://books.google.com/books?id=7I82AAAAIAAJ&q=&quot;If+the+state+is+strong+it+crushes+us+If+it+is+weak+we+perish&quot; as translated by D. Folliot and J. Mathews (1971)

“Freedom of mind and mind itself have been most fully developed in regions where trade developed at the same time. In all ages, without exception, every intense production of art, ideas, and spiritual values has occurred in some locality where a remarkable degree of economic activity was also manifest.”

Paul Valéry

Source: Regards sur le monde actuel [Reflections on the World Today] (1931), pp. 167-168

“Beautiful heaven, true heaven, look how I change!
After such arrogance, after so much strange
Idleness — strange, yet full of potency —
I am all open to these shining spaces;
Over the homes of the dead my shadow passes,
Ghosting along — a ghost subduing me.”

Paul Valéry

Beau ciel, vrai ciel, regarde-moi qui change!
Après tant d'orgueil, après tant d'étrange
Oisiveté, mais pleine de pouvoir,
Je m'abandonne à ce brillant espace,
Sur les maisons des morts mon ombre passe
Qui m'apprivoise à son frêle mouvoir.
As translated by by C. Day Lewis
Charmes ou poèmes (1922)

“What is there more mysterious than clarity?… What more capricious than the way in which light and shade are distributed over hours and over men?”

Paul Valéry

Socrates, p. 107. Ellipsis in original.
Eupalinos ou l'architecte (1921)

“That which has always been accepted by everyone, everywhere, is almost certain to be false.”

Paul Valéry

Tel Quel (1943)

“The “determinist” swears that if we knew everything we should also be able to deduce and foretell the conduct of every man in every circumstance, and that is obvious enough. But the expression “know everything” means nothing.”

Paul Valéry

Source: Regards sur le monde actuel [Reflections on the World Today] (1931), p. 42

“There is a value called “mind” as there is a value oil, wheat, or gold. … One can invest in that value, one can “follow” it as they say on the stock exchange; one can watch its fluctuations in I know not what price list which is the world’s general opinion of it. … All these rising and falling values constitute the great market of human affairs. And of these the unfortunate value mind does not stop falling.”

Paul Valéry

Source: Regards sur le monde actuel [Reflections on the World Today] (1931), p. 161

“Politics is the art of stopping people from minding their own business.”

Paul Valéry

Tel Quel (1943)

“The painter should not paint what he sees, but what will be seen.”

Paul Valéry

Mauvaises Pensées et Autres (1941)

“What grace of light, what pure toil goes to form
The manifold diamond of the elusive foam!
What peace I feel begotten at that source!
When sunlight rests upon a profound sea,
Time's air is sparkling, dream is certainty —
Pure artifice both of an eternal Cause.”

Paul Valéry

Quel pur travail de fins éclairs consume
Maint diamant d'imperceptible écume,
Et quelle paix semble se concevoir!
Quand sur l'abîme un soleil se repose,
Ouvrages purs d'une éternelle cause,
Le temps scintille et le songe est savoir.
As translated by by C. Day Lewis
Charmes ou poèmes (1922)

“Now present here, the future takes its time.
The brittle insect scrapes at the dry loam;
All is burnt up, used up, drawn up in air
To some ineffably rarefied solution...
Life is enlarged, drunk with annihilation,
And bitterness is sweet, and the spirit clear.”

Paul Valéry

Ici venu, l'avenir est paresse.
L'insecte net gratte la sécheresse;
Tout est brûlé, défait, reçu dans l'air
A je ne sais quelle sévère essence . . .
La vie est vaste, étant ivre d'absence,
Et l'amertume est douce, et l'esprit clair.
As translated by by C. Day Lewis
Charmes ou poèmes (1922)

“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.”

Paul Valéry

Source: Regards sur le monde actuel [Reflections on the World Today] (1931), p. 55

“Poetry is simply literature reduced to the essence of its active principle. It is purged of idols of every kind, of realistic illusions, of any conceivable equivocation between the language of "truth" and the language of "creation."”

Paul Valéry

Littérature (1930)

“What's loftiest in the mind can only live through growth.”

Paul Valéry

Lucretius, p. 171
Dialogue de l'arbre (1943)