quotes by Paul Valery

"A poem is never finished, only abandoned. "
— Paul Valery

"the best way to make your dreams come true is to wake up"
— Paul Valery

"Nothing is more natural than mutual misunderstanding; the contrary is always surprising. I believe that one never agrees on anything except by mistake, and that all harmony among human beings is the happy fruit of an error."
— Paul Valery (The Art of Poetry)

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

""The man of sound mind is the man who keeps his inner madman under lock and key." "
— Paul Valery

"I am now going to make an admission. I confess, I agree, that all these good people who protested, who laughed, who did not perceive what we perceived, were in a quite legitimate position. Their opinion was quite in order. One must not be afraid to say that the kingdom of letters is only a province of the vast empire of entertainment. One picks up a book, one puts it aside; and even when one cannot put it down one very well understands that this interest is related to the facility of pleasure. That is to say that every effort of a creator of beauty or of fantasy should be bent, by the very essence of his work, on contriving for the public pleasure which demands no effort, or almost none. It is through the public that he should deduce what touches, moves, soothes, animates or enchants the public.

There are however several publics; amongst whom it is not impossible to find some people who do not conceive of pleasure without pain, who do not like to enjoy themselves without paying, and who are not happy if their happiness is not in some part their own contrivance through which they wish to realize what it costs them.
"
— Paul Valery (Selected Writings of Paul Valery)

"I believed, rather more accurately, that a work resolutely thought out and sought for in the hazards of the mind, systematically, and through a determined analysis of definite and previously prescribed conditions, whatever its value might be once it had been produced, did not leave the mind of its creator without having modified him, and forced him to recognize and in some way reorganize himself. I said to myself that it was not the accomplished work, and its appearance and effect in the world, that can fulfill and edify us; but only the way in which we have done it."
— Paul Valery (Selected Writings of Paul Valery)

"At the end of the mind, the body. But at the end of the body, the mind."
— Paul Valery

"Love is being stupid together."
— Paul Valery

""Seeing is forgetting the name of the thing one sees." "
— Paul Valery

""Power without abuse loses its charm.""
— Paul Valery