A businessman is a hybrid of a dancer and a calculator.
Paul Valery

A great man is one who leaves others at a loss after he is gone.
Paul Valery

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.
Paul Valery

A man is infinitely more complicated than his thoughts.
Paul Valery

A man who is "of sound mind" is one who keeps the inner madman under lock and key.
Paul Valery

A man's true secrets are more secret to himself than they are to others.
Paul Valery

A poem is never finished, only abandoned.
Paul Valery

An artist never really finishes his work, he merely abandons it.
Paul Valery

At times I think and at times I am.
Paul Valery

Books have the same enemies as people: fire, humidity, animals, weather, and their own content.
Paul Valery


God created man and, finding him not sufficiently alone, gave him a companion to make him feel his solitude more keenly.
Paul Valery

God made everything out of nothing, but the nothingness shows through.
Paul Valery

History is the science of things which are not repeated.
Paul Valery

In poetry everything which must be said is almost impossible to say well.
Paul Valery

Long years must pass before the truths we have made for ourselves become our very flesh.
Paul Valery

Love is being stupid together.
Paul Valery

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.
Paul Valery

Our judgments judge us, and nothing reveals us, exposes our weaknesses, more ingeniously than the attitude of pronouncing upon our fellows.
Paul Valery

Poe is the only impeccable writer. He was never mistaken.
Paul Valery

Politeness is organized indifference.
Paul Valery