Paul Valéry — a remark

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“Man must develop the faculties of his mind as a virtuoso practises his scales.”

Original: L'homme doit développer les facultés de son esprit comme un virtuose fait ses gammes. — Mental ability is presented as something that requires continual practice rather than passive possession. · Cahiers (French)

About Paul Valéry

Paul Valéry

30 October 1871–20 July 1945

In the autumn of 1871, as France was still reeling from the trauma of the Franco-Prussian War and the violent suppression of the Paris Commune, a child was born in the Mediterranean port town of Sète who would become one of the twentieth century's most formidable literary intellects. Ambroise Paul Toussaint Jules…

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