The lion consists of assimilated sheep.
Paul Valéry
Tag: Valery
There is nothing in the critical field that should be of greater philosophical interest or prove more rewarding to analysis than the progressive modification of one mind by the work of another.
Paul Valéry
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 Valéry
Two dangers constantly threaten the world: order and disorder.
Paul Valéry
Tom Morris: Interview with a Philosopher: A Way to Have Deep Conversations Online… No, Really
Tom Morris: Interview with a Philosopher: A Way to Have Deep Conversations Online… No, Really
When Paul Valéry and Michel de Montaigne appear in the same article, I feel compelled to post a link.
Learn to appreciate as an artist things as simple as the day; sleep; walking and running–a room–an ordinary phrase; to read instinct; to drink, to gaze at oneself or speak to oneself–to see afresh, in other words, what has been seen so often–but in its place.
Paul Valéry
The universe is built on a plan the profound symmetry of which is somehow present in the inner structure of our intellect.
Paul Valéry
Henceforward every action will be re-echoed by many unforeseen interests on all sides; it will produce a chain of immediate events- confused reverberations in a closed space. The effect of effects, which were formerly imperceptible or negligible in relation to the length of a human life and to the radius of action of any human power, are now felt almost instantly at any distance; they return immediately to their causes, and only die away in the unpredictable. The expectations of the predictor are always disappointed, and that in a matter of months or a very few years.
Paul Valéry, 1931 (via)
Things rare or things beautiful, here are wisely assembled, they instruct the eye to look at all things in the world as if never seen before.
Paul Valéry, 1937. Much to my amazement and delight, this was the opening quote in Airstream: The History of the Land Yacht.
Paul Valéry, whose notebooks inspired the name of this (my former) weblog (photo source).