Quotes & anectdotes from
the wise,
the foolish,
the courageous &
the drunk

Paul Valery Philosopher

  • Gender: Male
  • Citizenship: France
  • Born: Oct 30, 1871
  • Died: Jul 20, 1945

Ambroise-Paul-Toussaint-Jules Valéry was a French poet, essayist, and philosopher. In addition to his poetry and fiction, his interests included aphorisms on art, history, letters, music, and current events.

God made everything out of nothing, but the nothingness shows through.

War: a massacre of people who don't know each other for the profit of people who know each other but don't massacre each other.

An artist never really finishes his work, he merely abandons it.

The best way to make your dreams come true is to wake up.

The future, like everything else, is not what it used to be.

Love is being stupid together.

Politics is the art of preventing people from busying themselves with what is their own business.

Power without abuse loses its charm.

In poetry everything which must be said is almost impossible to say well.

The history of thought may be summed up in these words: it is absurd by what it seeks and great by what it finds.

Science means simply the aggregate of all the recipes that are always successful. All the rest is literature.

God created man and, finding him not sufficiently alone, gave him a companion to make him feel his solitude more keenly.

History is the science of things which are not repeated.

A poem is never finished, only abandoned.

The trouble with our times is that the future is not what it used to be.

Our judgments judge us, and nothing reveals us, exposes our weaknesses, more ingeniously than the attitude of pronouncing upon our fellows.