“I am interested in everything; I cannot help it.”

Original: Je m'intéresse à tout, je n'y peux rien. — A concise expression of intellectual curiosity without any pretence of selectivity. · Cahiers (French)

• Curiosity
• Knowledge
• Wonder

“I am becoming terribly myself, perhaps in reaction against everything that increasingly forces me to be someone else.”

Original: Je deviens terriblement moi-même. Peut-être par réaction contre tout ce qui me contraint de plus en plus à être un autre. — Individuality can emerge as a resistance to social pressure and imposed identities. · Cahiers (French)

• Freedom
• Identity
• Individuality

“There is a poverty of mind in always agreeing with oneself.”

Original: Il y a de la pauvreté d'esprit à être toujours d'accord avec soi-même. — Intellectual growth requires the willingness to question one's own conclusions. · Mauvaises pensées et autres (French)

• Doubt
• Intelligence
• Self Knowledge

“One should call only the set of recipes that always succeed science. Everything else is literature.”

Original: Il faut n'appeler science que l'ensemble des recettes qui réussissent toujours. Tout le reste est littérature. — A provocative definition of science based on repeatable results rather than claims of authority. · Moralités (French)

• Certainty
• Literature
• Science

“One must judge coldly and act warmly.”

Original: Il faut juger à froid, et agir à chaud. — Good judgement requires calm reflection, while action may require energy and immediacy. · Mauvaises pensées et autres (French)

• Action
• Judgement
• Self Control

“There are things that only others draw out of us, and things that we can draw only from others.”

Original: Il est des choses que les autres seuls tirent de nous. Il est des choses que nous ne tirons que des autres. — Human relationships reveal qualities and possibilities that solitary self-knowledge cannot uncover. · Cahiers (French)

• Connection
• Others
• Relationships

“Believing is hanging on to what one supports.”

Original: Croire c'est se suspendre à ce que l'on soutient. — Belief is depicted as a reciprocal relationship in which the believer depends upon what they believe. · Cahiers (French)

• Belief
• Dependence
• Faith

“Believing in the human word, spoken or written, is as indispensable to humans as trusting the firmness of the ground.”

Original: Croire à la parole humaine, parlée ou écrite, est aussi indispensable aux humains que de se fier à la fermeté du sol. — Human communication depends upon a basic trust that makes collective life possible. · Cahiers (French)

• Communication
• Language
• Trust

“The best in what is new is what answers an old desire.”

Original: Ce qui est le meilleur dans le nouveau est ce qui répond à un désir ancien. — Novelty becomes meaningful when it fulfils a deep and enduring human need. · Littérature (French)

• Creativity
• Desire
• Novelty

“An artist's inner manoeuvres and a scientist's are not different, provided both place desire above career.”

Original: Il n'y a pas de différence, autre que nominale, entre les manœuvres intérieures d'un artiste ou poète, et celle d'un savant, en les prenant parmi ceux qui placent leur désir au-dessus de toute carrière. — Valéry sees artistic and scientific creation as closely related forms of disciplined intellectual desire. · Cahiers (French)

• Artists
• Creativity
• Science

“The poet devotes and consumes himself to defining and constructing a language within language.”

Original: Le poète se consacre et se consume à définir et à construire un langage dans le langage. — Poetry is presented as the creation of a heightened language within ordinary language. · Variété (French)

• Craft
• Language
• Poetry

“Newton's genius consisted in saying that the moon falls, when everyone can plainly see that it does not fall.”

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. — Great thinking can reveal a deeper truth precisely where ordinary perception appears to contradict it. · Cahiers (French)

• Genius
• Perception
• Science

“The thought beneath thought is paved with crossroads.”

Original: Le fond de la pensée est pavé de carrefours. — Thought is portrayed as branching, uncertain and full of competing possibilities. · Cahiers (French)

• Choice
• Thought
• Uncertainty

“Society lives only on illusions. Every society is a kind of collective dream.”

Original: La Société ne vit que d'illusions. Toute Société est une sorte de rêve collectif. — Shared beliefs and assumptions are presented as essential ingredients of social cohesion. · Cahiers (French)

• Belief
• Community
• Society

“The weakness of strength is to believe only in strength.”

Original: La faiblesse de la force est de ne croire qu'à la force. — Power becomes vulnerable when it cannot recognise forms of influence other than force. · Cahiers (French)

• Power
• Strength
• Wisdom

“Man knows often enough what he does; he never knows what what he does is doing.”

Original: L'homme sait assez souvent ce qu'il fait, il ne sait jamais ce que fait ce qu'il fait. — Actions have consequences and meanings that exceed the intentions of the person performing them. · Cahiers (French)

• Action
• Consequences
• Uncertainty

“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)

• Learning
• Mind
• Practice

“History is the science of things that do not repeat themselves.”

Original: L'histoire est la science des choses qui ne se répètent pas. — The remark captures the paradoxical difficulty of treating unique events as a science. · Regards sur le monde actuel (French)

• History
• Knowledge
• Time

“Our minds live on difference; the gap exists, while fullness leaves them inert.”

Original: L'esprit vit de différence, l'écart existe, la plénitude le laisse inerte. — Intellectual life depends upon contrast, tension and incompleteness rather than perfect satisfaction. · Cahiers (French)

• Creativity
• Difference
• Mind

“If everything were clear, everything would seem pointless.”

Original: Que tout fût clair, tout nous semblerait vain. — Mystery and uncertainty are presented as part of what gives experience its depth and value. · Cahiers (French)

• Meaning
• Mystery
• Uncertainty

“The little unexplained facts always contain enough to overturn all explanations of the great facts.”

Original: Les petits faits inexpliqués contiennent toujours de quoi renverser toutes les explications des grands faits. — Small anomalies can expose the weakness of grand theories and sweeping explanations. · Cahiers (French)

• Doubt
• Evidence
• Science

“Every philosophy could be reduced to laboriously seeking what one already knows naturally.”

Original: Toute philosophie pourrait se réduire à rechercher laborieusement cela même que l'on sait naturellement. — Valéry presents philosophy as a difficult return to truths that ordinary intuition may already contain. · Mauvaises pensées et autres (French)

• Knowledge
• Philosophy
• Reflection

“The historian's art is to make people believe that what he says really happened.”

Original: L'art de l'historien est de faire croire aux hommes que ce qu'il dit s'est réellement passé. — A sceptical observation about the authority created by historical narrative. · Regards sur le monde actuel (French)

• History
• Truth
• Writing

“The language wears away within us.”

Original: Le langage s'use en nous. — Language can lose its freshness and expressive force through habitual use. · Tel quel (French)

• Communication
• Language
• Words