Paul Valery, (1871-1945), French poet, essayist and critic Quotes
It would be impossible to "love" anyone or anything one knew completely. Love is directed towards what lies hidden in its object.
Having precise ideas often leads to a man doing nothing.
Disorder is the rule with you, you will be penalized for installing order.
A man is infinitely more complicated than his thoughts. .
The history of thought may be summed up in these words: it is absurd by what is seeks and great by what it finds. .
Serious people have few ideas. People with ideas are never serious.
Latent in every man is a venom of amazing bitterness, a black resentment; something that curses and loathes life, a feeling of being trapped, of having trusted and been fooled, of being the helpless prey of impotent rage, blind surrender, the victim of a savage, ruthless power that gives and takes away, enlists a man, and crowning injury inflicts upon him the humiliation of feeling sorry for himself.
Science means simply the aggregate of all the recipes that are always successful. All the rest is literature.
Politics is a means of preventing people from taking part in what properly concerns them.
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