“The history of thought may be summed up in these words: it is absurd by what it seeks and great by what it finds.”
More from Paul Valéry on Philosophy
“A great man is one who leaves others at a loss after he is gone.”
“God created man and, finding him not sufficiently alone, gave him a companion to make him feel his solitude more keenly.”
“Une philosophie doit etre portative.”
“God created man and, finding him not sufficiently alone, gave him a companion to make him feel his solitude more keenly”
“Consciousness reigns but doesn't govern.”
“What others think of us would be of little moment did it not, when known, so deeply tinge what we think of ourselves.”
“Those who cannot attack the thought, instead attack the thinker.”
“Conscience reigns but it does not govern.”
“Follow the path of your aroused thought, and you will soon meet this infernal inscription: There is nothing so beautiful as that which does not exist.”
“To penetrate one's being one must go armed to the teeth.”
Others on Philosophy
Nietzsche
22 quotes“Glance into the world just as though time were gone: and everything crooked will become straight to you.”
Christopher Hitchens
22 quotes“To the dumb question "Why me?" the cosmos barely bothers to return the reply: why not?”
Ludwig Wittgenstein
22 quotes“I don't know why we are here, but I'm pretty sure that it is not in order to enjoy ourselves.”
Carl Jung
21 quotes“I simply believe that some part of the human Self or Soul is not subject to the laws of space and time.”
Immanuel Kant
20 quotes“An action, to have moral worth, must be done from duty.”
Heraclitus
19 quotes“Nothing endures but change.”
H. L. Mencken
17 quotes“A philosopher is a blind man in a dark room looking for a black cat that isn't there. A theologian is the man who finds...”
C.S. Lewis
15 quotes“For the Present is the point at which time touches eternity.”
Fyodor Dostoevsky
14 quotes“I am alone, I thought, and they are everybody.”
Samuel Beckett
14 quotes“We always find something, eh Didi, to let us think we exist?”
Napoleon
14 quotes“Circumstances-what are circumstances? I make circumstances.”
T. S. Eliot
13 quotes“We have only to conquer Now, by suffering. This is the easier victory.Now is the triumph of the cross.”