My soul is nothing now but the dream dreamt by matter struggling with itself!
That which has always been accepted by everyone, everywhere, is almost certain to be false.
To construct oneself, to know oneself—are these two distinct acts or not?
To sin by silence, when we should protest,
Makes cowards out of men.
Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving us wordy evidence of the fact.
There are times when good words are to be left unsaid out of esteem for silence.
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.