Paul Valery

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

— Paul Valery

#business #own #people #politics #preventing

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. ↗

— Paul Valery

#know #massacre #other #people #profit

A man's true secrets are more secret to himself than they are to others. ↗

— Paul Valery

#man #more #others #secret #secrets

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. ↗

— Paul Valery

#capital #discovery #folly #inborn #metaphor

A man is infinitely more complicated than his thoughts. ↗

— Paul Valery

#his #infinitely #man #more #than

Books have the same enemies as people: fire, humidity, animals, weather, and their own content. ↗

— Paul Valery

#content #fire #humidity #own #people

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

— Paul Valery

#future #our #times #trouble #used

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

— Paul Valery

#always #literature #means #recipes #rest

The purpose of psychology is to give us a completely different idea of the things we know best. ↗

— Paul Valery

#completely #different #give #idea #know

Two dangers constantly threaten the world: order and disorder. ↗

— Paul Valery

#dangers #disorder #order #threaten #two