Skip to content

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

— Paul Valéry Tel Quel (1943)

Another quote →

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)

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

Eupalinos ou l'architecte (1921)

And do not humans strive in a thousand ways to fill or to break the eternal silence of those infinite spaces that affright them?

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.