Paul Valery (1871 - 1945)
French critic & poet


--Books have the same enemies as people: fire, humidity, animals, weather, and their own content.


--God made everything out of nothing, but the nothingness shows through.


--That which has always been accepted by everyone, everywhere, is almost certain to be false.


--The trouble with our times is that the future is not what it used to be.


--The folly of mistaking a paradox for a discovery, a metaphor for a proof, a torrent of verbiage for a spring of capital truths, and oneself for an oracle, is inborn in us.