Whoever wants to accomplish great things must devote to a lot of profound thought to details.
Paul ValeryWhat Degas called 'a way of seeing' must consequently bear a wide enough interpretation to include way of being, power, knowledge, and will.
Paul ValeryHis heart is a desert island.... The whole scope, the whole energy of his mind surround and protect him; his depths isolate him and guard him against the truth. He flatters himself that he is entirely alone there.... Patience, dear lady. Perhaps, one day, he will discover some footprint on the sand.... What holy and happy terror, what salutary fright, once he recognizes in that pure sign of grace that his island is mysteriously inhabited!
Paul ValeryThat which has always been accepted by everyone, everywhere, is almost certain to be false.
Paul Valery...in song the words tend to lose their significance, do often lose it, while at the other extreme, in current prose it is the musical value that tends to disappear - so that verse stands symmetrically, as it were, between song, on the one hand, and prose on the other - and is thus admirably and delicately balanced between the sensual and the intellectual power of language.
Paul Valery