That which has always been accepted by everyone, everywhere, is almost certain to be false.
Paul ValeryRead
History is the most dangerous product evolved from the chemistry of the intellect. ...History will justify anything. It teaches precisely nothing, for it contains everything and furnishes examples of everything.
Interpretation
What this quote means
History is complex and can be interpreted in many ways, often justifying actions regardless of morality.
This quote by Paul Valery reflects on the intricate nature of history, suggesting that it is not a straightforward teacher but rather a vast repository of human actions and intellect. Valery implies that history's comprehensive nature allows for justifying various actions, good or bad, while it paradoxically offers little in terms of moral lessons, as it encompasses both achievements and failures of humanity.
Themes
HistoryIntellectLessonsMoralityJustification
In practice
Example use cases
In a history class discussion about the actions of historical figures.
More from Paul Valery
All quotes βOh, hasten not this loving act, Rapture where self and not-self meet: My life has been the awaiting you, Your footfall was my own heart's beat.
Paul ValeryRead
The history of thought may be summed up in these words: it is absurd by what it seeks and great by what it finds.
Paul ValeryRead
The world acquires value only through its extremes and endures only through moderation; extremists make the world great, the moderates give it stability.
Paul ValeryRead
It would be impossible to "love" anyone or anything one knew completely. Love is directed towards what lies hidden in its object.
Paul ValeryRead
You have certainly observed the curious fact that a given word which is perfectly clear when you hear it or use it in everyday language, and which does not give rise to any difficulty when it is engaged in the rapid movement of an ordinary sentence becomes magically embarrassing, introduces a strange resistance, frustrates any effort at definition as soon as you take it out of circulation to examine it separately and look for its meaning after taking away its instantaneous function.
Paul ValeryRead
Similar quotes
The greatest tragedy in mankind's entire history may be the hijacking of morality by religion.
Arthur C. ClarkeRead
Peace is present when things form part of a whole greater than their sum, as the diverse minerals in the ground collect to become the tree.
Antoine De Saint-ExuperyRead
What concerns me is that man, unable to articulate, to express himself adequately, reverts to action. Since the vocabulary of action is limited, as it were, to his body, he is bound to act violently, extending his vocabulary with a weapon where there should have been an adjective.
Joseph BrodskyRead
Whence, then, this worship of the past? The centuries are conspirators against the sanity and authority of the soul.
Ralph Waldo EmersonRead
It seemed like a matter of minutes when we began rolling in the foothills before Oakland and suddenly reached a height and saw stretched out ahead of us the fabulous white city of San Francisco on her eleven mystic hills with the blue Pacific and its advancing wall of potato-patch fog beyond, and smoke and goldenness in the late afternoon of time.
Jack KerouacRead
Our culture difinitely takes an egocentric dominator view. The fear of the psychedelic experience is quite literally the fear of losing control. Dominator types today don't understand that it's not important to maintain control if you are not in control in the first place.
Terence MckennaRead