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Now, of all acts the most complete is that of constructing. A work demands love, meditation, obedience to your finest thought, the invention of laws by your soul, and many other things that it draws miraculously from your own self, which did not suspect that it possessed them. This work proceeds from the most intimate center of your existence, and yet it is distinct from yourself.

— Paul Valéry Eupalinos ou l'architecte (1921)

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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)

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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.