Valery, Paul (1871 – 1945), French critic & poet
God made everything out of nothing, but the nothingness shows through (Dieu a tout fait de rien. Mais le rien perce.)
Politics is the art of preventing people from taking part in affairs which properly concern them.
That which has always been accepted by everyone, everywhere, is almost certain to be false.
What others think of us would be of little moment did it not, when known, so deeply tinge what we think of ourselves.
Man is only man at the surface. Remove the skin, dissect, and immediately you come to machinery.
The trouble with our times is that the future is not what it used to be.
The folly of mistaking a paradox for a discovery, a metaphor for a proof, a torrent of verbiage for a spring of capital truths, and oneself for an oracle, is inborn in us.
A poem is never finished, only abandoned.
