Literary Birthday – 30 October – Paul Valéry

Paul Valéry was born 30 October 1871, and died 20 July 1945.

Quotes

1. The best way to make your dreams come true is to wake up.
2. A poem is never finished, only abandoned.
3. Books have the same enemies as people: fire, humidity, animals, weather, and their own content.
4. Poe is the only impeccable writer. He was never mistaken.
5. What one wrote playfully, another reads with tension and passion; what one wrote with tension and passion, another reads playfully.
6. To enter into your own mind you need to be armed to the teeth.
7. Every social system is more or less against nature, and at every moment nature is at work to reclaim her rights.
8. Poetry is a separate language, or more specifically, a language within a language.
9. Nothing beautiful can be summarised.

Paul Valéry was a French poet, essayist, and philosopher. Along with Paul Verlaine and Stéphane Mallarmé, Valéry is considered one the most important Symbolist writers. His self-conscious and philosophical style influenced T. S. Eliot and John Ashbery.

Source for Image

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Paul_Val%C3%A9ry_-_photo_Henri_Manuel.jpg

Henri Manuel, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

by Amanda Patterson

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