“The soul must be made monstrous.”

Original: L’âme doit être rendue monstrueuse. — Rimbaud advocates an enlargement of consciousness beyond the limits imposed by ordinary experience. · Letter to Paul Demeny, 15 May 1871 (French)

• Consciousness
• Transformation
• Vision

“As soon as he knows it, he must cultivate it.”

Original: Sitôt qu’il la connaît, il la cultive! — Self-knowledge becomes valuable only when it is actively developed through practice. · Letter to Paul Demeny, 15 May 1871 (French)

• Growth
• Practice
• Self Knowledge

“He searches his soul, inspects it, tests it, learns it.”

Original: Il cherche son âme, il l’inspecte, il la tente, l’apprend. — The poet is presented as an explorer whose territory is consciousness itself. · Letter to Paul Demeny, 15 May 1871 (French)

• Discovery
• Poetry
• Self Knowledge

“The first study of the man who wants to be a poet is his own complete knowledge of himself.”

Original: La première étude de l’homme qui veut être poète est sa propre connaissance, entière. — Rimbaud links poetic ambition with an uncompromising investigation of the self. · Letter to Paul Demeny, 15 May 1871 (French)

• Knowledge
• Poetry
• Self Knowledge

“I draw the bow; the symphony stirs in the depths, or leaps onto the stage.”

Original: Je lance un coup d’archet: la symphonie fait son remuement dans les profondeurs, ou vient d’un bond sur la scène. — Poetic creation is imagined as the release of something already stirring beneath conscious awareness. · Letter to Paul Demeny, 15 May 1871 (French)

• Creation
• Music
• Poetry

“It is obvious to me: I witness my thought coming into being; I watch it, I listen to it.”

Original: Cela m’est évident: j’assiste à l’éclosion de ma pensée: je la regarde, je l’écoute. — Rimbaud describes thought as an unfolding process that the poet observes rather than completely controls. · Letter to Paul Demeny, 15 May 1871 (French)

• Consciousness
• Creation
• Thought

“If brass wakes up as a bugle, it is not its fault.”

Original: Si le cuivre s’éveille clairon, il n’y a rien de sa faute. — The metaphor presents the poet as an instrument through which something beyond conscious intention finds expression. · Letter to Paul Demeny, 15 May 1871 (French)

• Consciousness
• Creation
• Poetry

“You are a teacher again. You told me that one owes a duty to Society; you are part of the teaching profession: you are keeping to the beaten track.”

Original: Vous revoilà professeur. On se doit à la Société, m’avez-vous dit; vous faites partie des corps enseignants: vous roulez dans la bonne ornière. — Rimbaud attacks conformity and the respectable social roles he believed constrained creative freedom. · Letter to Georges Izambard, 13 May 1871 (French)

• Convention
• Freedom
• Rebellion

“I shall be a worker… working now, never, never; I am on strike.”

Original: Je serai un travailleur… travailler maintenant, jamais, jamais; je suis en grève. — Rimbaud turns the language of labour and revolt against conventional poetic and social expectations. · Letter to Georges Izambard, 13 May 1871 (French)

• Freedom
• Rebellion
• Work

“I wrote silences, nights; I noted the inexpressible. I fixed vertigos.”

Original: J’écrivais des silences, des nuits, je notais l’inexprimable. Je fixais des vertiges. — The poet describes an attempt to give lasting form to experiences that ordinarily resist language. · A Season in Hell, Alchemy of the Word, 1873 (French)

• Expression
• Silence
• Writing

“One must be absolutely modern.”

Original: Il faut être absolument moderne. — A stark call to confront the present rather than retreat into inherited forms, consolations or conventions. · A Season in Hell, Adieu, 1873 (French)

• Change
• Courage
• Modernity

“The poet is truly a thief of fire.”

Original: Le Poète est vraiment voleur de Feu. — The poet is cast as a Promethean figure who takes transformative knowledge and power beyond ordinary human limits. · Letter to Paul Demeny, 15 May 1871 (French)

• Creation
• Knowledge
• Poetry

“Poetry will no longer set the rhythm of action; it will be in advance of it.”

Original: La poésie ne rythmera plus l’action; elle sera en avant. — Rimbaud gives poetry a prophetic role, imagining it as something that anticipates rather than merely reflects change. · Letter to Paul Demeny, 15 May 1871 (French)

• Action
• Future
• Poetry

“It is false to say: I think. One should say: I am thought.”

Original: C’est faux de dire: Je pense. On devrait dire: On me pense. — The poet presents thought as something that happens through the self rather than something entirely controlled by it. · Letter to Georges Izambard, 13 May 1871 (French)

• Consciousness
• Self
• Thought

“The intelligence of Newton lay in saying that the moon falls, although everyone can see that it does not.”

Original: Le génie de Newton a consisté à dire que la lune tombe alors que tout le monde voit bien qu'elle ne tombe pas. — Scientific genius can consist in seeing a deeper reality beneath an apparently obvious fact. · Cahiers (French)

• Genius
• Perception
• Science

“Between order and disorder there reigns a delightful moment.”

Original: Entre l'ordre et le désordre règne un moment délicieux. — The most creative and pleasurable state may exist between rigid order and complete chaos. · Cahiers (French)

• Balance
• Creativity
• Harmony

“Two dangers never cease to threaten the world: order and disorder.”

Original: Deux dangers ne cessent de menacer le monde: l'ordre et le désordre. — Valéry identifies both excessive control and excessive chaos as threats to a living society. · Cahiers (French)

• Disorder
• Order
• Society

“In public life, once a person has constructed his character and hears its echo, he plays the character, or rather the character plays him.”

Original: Dans toute carrière publique, une fois que l'on a construit son personnage, et que le bruit qu'il fait revient à son auteur, celui-ci joue son personnage, ou plutôt son personnage le joue. — Public identity can become a role that eventually controls the person who originally created it. · Cahiers (French)

• Identity
• Public Opinion
• Reputation

“The events themselves are demanded as nourishment; if there is no great misfortune in the world this morning, we feel a certain emptiness.”

Original: Les événements eux-mêmes sont demandés comme une nourriture. S'il n'y a point ce matin quelque grand malheur dans le monde, nous sentons un certain vide. — Valéry observes the appetite for dramatic news and catastrophe in modern public life. · Variété (French)

• Events
• Humanity
• Journalism

“The most profound questions of the mind can be naive questions when directed back at the mind itself.”

Original: Toute question de l'esprit à l'esprit même, n'est, et ne peut être, qu'une naïveté. — Valéry warns against assuming that introspection automatically produces profound answers. · Eupalinos ou l'Architecte (French)

• Mind
• Philosophy
• Reflection

“The answer we give ourselves is never certainly anything other than the question itself.”

Original: La réponse que nous nous faisons n'est jamais assurément que la question elle-même. — Some answers merely restate the assumptions already contained within the questions that produced them. · Eupalinos ou l'Architecte (French)

• Doubt
• Philosophy
• Questions

“The work flows from the deepest part of your life, yet it does not merge with you.”

Original: Cette œuvre découle du plus intime de ta vie, et cependant elle ne se confond pas avec toi. — A finished creation becomes independent of its maker even though it originates in the maker's deepest self. · Eupalinos ou l'Architecte (French)

• Art
• Creation
• Identity

“The most complete act is that of constructing, because a work demands love, meditation, obedience to one's finest thought and invention.”

Original: Une œuvre demande l'amour, la méditation, l'obéissance à ta plus belle pensée, l'invention de lois par ton âme. — Creation is understood as a synthesis of thought, discipline, love and invention. · Eupalinos ou l'Architecte (French)

• Craft
• Creation
• Love

“If all men were equally enlightened, equally critical and above all equally courageous, society would be impossible.”

Original: Si tous les hommes étaient également éclairés, également critiques, et surtout également courageux, toute Société serait impossible. — Society depends partly upon differences in knowledge, judgement and courage between its members. · Variété (French)

• Courage
• Equality
• Society