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All perishes. A thing of flesh and pore
Am I. Divine impatience also dies.

— Paul Valéry Charmes ou poèmes (1922)

Allez! Tout fuit! Ma présence est poreuse,
La sainte impatience meurt aussi!

Original text (French)

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Notes from Wikiquote

As translated by by C. Day Lewis

More quotes by Paul Valéry

Reason, sometimes, seems to me to be the faculty our soul possesses of understanding nothing about our body!

L'Âme et la danse (1921)

Most people in reasoning, dear Phaedrus, use notions that not only are "ready-made," but have actually been made by nobody. No one is responsible for them, and so they serve everyone badly.

Eupalinos ou l'architecte (1921)

My soul is nothing now but the dream dreamt by matter struggling with itself!

L'Âme et la danse (1921)

That which has always been accepted by everyone, everywhere, is almost certain to be false.

Tel Quel (1943)

To construct oneself, to know oneself—are these two distinct acts or not?

Eupalinos ou l'architecte (1921)

All Paul Valéry quotes →

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Paul Valéry (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.