A biography for Paul Valeryhasn’t been written yet.
“Poe is the only impeccable writer. He was never mistaken.”
“Long years must pass before the truths we have made for ourselves become our very flesh.”
“A businessman is a hybrid of a dancer and a calculator.”
“God made everything out of nothing, but the nothingness shows through.”
“The future, like everything else, is not what it used to be.”
“A man's true secrets are more secret to himself than they are to others.”
“Love is being stupid together.”
“Politics is the art of preventing people from busying themselves with what is their own business.”
“Two dangers constantly threaten the world: order and disorder.”
“That which has been believed by everyone, always and everywhere, has every chance of being false.”
“The history of thought may be summed up in these words: it is absurd by what it seeks and great by what it finds.”
“An artist never really finishes his work, he merely abandons it.”
“A poem is never finished, only abandoned.”
“Power without abuse loses its charm.”
“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.”
“Books have the same enemies as people: fire, humidity, animals, weather, and their own content.”
“Politeness is organized indifference.”