“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

“Had I, like the rest, gone through the trouble of being presented at court, there would have been no plea for enjoying this retirement that I love and require.”

An unusually direct expression of her preference for privacy over fashionable society · Letter to her niece, Mannheim, 27 February 1836

• Simplicity
• Society
• Solitude

“The men who belong to the Services constitute a very small portion of our world, and do not attract much of its attention or its interest.”

Reflecting on the relative invisibility of disciplined service communities to civilian society. · Speech, The Spirit of the Navy, 1908

• Attention
• Service
• Society

“Personally, I believe that the possession of gold has ruined fewer men than the lack of it.”

Challenging easy moralising about wealth by drawing attention to the destructive effects of poverty · Essay collection, Ponkapog Papers (1903)

• Morality
• Society
• Suffering

“The elements of a nation’s weakness must ever be found at the hearthstone.”

She argues that the health of a nation ultimately begins within its homes and families. · Speech, Woman's Political Future, 1893

• Family
• Home
• Society

“The hostility perpetually exercised between one man and another, is caused by the desire of many for that which only few can possess.”

Tracing social conflict to competition for scarce status and rewards · Rambler No. 183

• Despair
• Society

“O Cyrus, I have observed that the authors of good make men very bad as often as they talk much about them.”

Noting how the loudest preachers of virtue often breed the worst vice · Imaginary Conversations

• Hypocrisy
• Morality
• Society

“Poets are made as well as born, the proverb notwithstanding. They are made possible by the general love of poetry and the consequent imperious demand for it.”

Arguing that poets flourish not only through talent but through a culture prepared to value poetry · Ponkapog Papers, Leaves from a Note Book (1903)

• Culture
• Poetry
• Society

“Genius is always individual.”

Defending individuality as the source of intellectual and social advancement · Letter to Isa Blagden, c. 1850

• Individuality
• Originality
• Society

“In these days nothing can be kept from the joint demands of cupidity and curiosity.”

A sharp observation on the forces that turn private lives into public material · Letter to Joseph Cottle, 30 September 1836

• Culture
• Fame
• Society

“The claim of this country to call itself 'The Land of the Free' must be held in abeyance until every man in it, whether he belongs or does not belong to a labor organization, shall have the right to work for his daily bread.”

Defining liberty partly through an individual's freedom to work without coercion · Ponkapog Papers, Leaves from a Note Book (1903)

• Freedom
• Society
• Work

“We have long punished crime; let us now act on wise principles, and try prevention.”

A remarkably modern argument for preventing social harm rather than relying only on punishment · Letter to her Edinburgh correspondent, 26 January 1844

• Justice
• Society
• Wisdom

“The Group will pass remarks on books it has not read, of which he will pick out the cleverest for his own use.”

A comic anatomy of clique talk in literary London · Book, Some Contemporary Poets, 1920

• Criticism
• Hypocrisy
• Society

“All our life, our environment is our education, and an educator at once severe and dangerous.”

Original: Toute la vie, notre milieu est notre éducation, et un éducateur à la fois sévère et dangereux. — The social environment continually teaches us, but its lessons may be demanding and potentially harmful. · Variété (French)

• Education
• Environment
• Society

“You may meet that man on your farm, in your village, or in your legislature.”

Suggesting that moral independence can appear in every sphere of ordinary life. · Speech, Values in Life, 1907

• Character
• Independence
• Society

“The result will be not to make home less happy, but society more holy.”

She rejects the idea that women's public advancement must diminish the importance of home. · Speech, Woman's Political Future, 1893

• Home
• Society
• Women

“If any are lost for want of care and culture, there is a sin of omission in the society to which they belong.”

Placing responsibility on society when neglect prevents people from flourishing · Prose, Colloquies on Society

• Care
• Duty
• Society

“When everyone is somebody, then no one's anybody.”

Highlighting how universal privilege diminishes individual distinction · Conversation / spoken remark (adapted into theatrical dialogue)

• Equality
• Society
• Wit

“Every man recounts the inconveniences of his own station, and thinks those of any other less, because he has not felt them.”

Explaining why other people's circumstances often appear easier than one's own · Rambler No. 45

• Society
• Truth

“We must always repeat the truth, because error is also continually preached around us, not by individuals alone but by the multitude.”

Original: Man muß das Wahre immer wiederholen, weil auch der Irrtum um uns her immer wieder gepredigt wird, und zwar nicht von einzelnen, sondern von der Masse. — Truth requires repetition because collective opinion can give error the appearance of authority. · Conversation with Johann Peter Eckermann, 16 December 1828 (German)

• Communication
• Society
• Truth

“We must keep moving with the world or stand still and solitary.”

Arguing that continued engagement with change prevents isolation · Essay, The Heart of the New Thought

• Change
• Isolation
• Society

“You are now collecting your people delightfully, getting them exactly into such a spot as is the delight of my life. Three or four families in a country village is the very thing to work on.”

A celebrated statement of the intimate social scale on which she preferred to write · Letter to Anna Austen, 9 September 1814

• Character
• Society
• Writing

“hoping a total end of all the unhappy divisions of mankind by party-spirit, which at best is but the madness of many for the gain of a few.”

Condemning factional politics as collective folly serving private interests · Letter to Edward Blount, 27 August 1714

• Politics
• Power
• Society

“Every form of politics rests on the indifference of most of those concerned, without which no politics would be possible.”

Original: Toute politique se fonde sur l'indifférence de la plupart des intéressés, sans laquelle il n'y a point de politique possible. — Valéry highlights the paradoxical role of public indifference in political life. · Regards sur le monde actuel, 1931 (French)

• Indifference
• Politics
• Society