That which has always been accepted by everyone, everywhere, is almost certain to be false.
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.
Interpretation
This quote highlights the balance between extremes and moderation in creating value in the world.
Paul Valery's quote suggests that while extremes can lead to remarkable achievements and innovations, it is the moderates who ensure that society remains stable and functional. This interplay between extreme actions and moderate responses is essential for a dynamic yet balanced world.
In practice
A speaker using this quote during a university lecture on political science to discuss the balance between radical movements and stable governance.
That which has always been accepted by everyone, everywhere, is almost certain to be false.
Oh, 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.
The history of thought may be summed up in these words: it is absurd by what it seeks and great by what it finds.
It would be impossible to "love" anyone or anything one knew completely. Love is directed towards what lies hidden in its object.
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.
Latent in every man is a venom of amazing bitterness, a black resentment; something that curses and loathes life, a feeling of being trapped, of having trusted and been fooled, of being helpless prey to impotent rage, blind surrender, the victim of a savage, ruthless power that gives and takes away, enlists a man, drops him, promises and betrays, and -crowning injury- inflicts on him the humiliation of feeling sorry for himself.
Favor and disgrace are like fear. Favor is in a higher place, and disgrace in a lower place. When you win them you are like being in fear, and when you lose them you are also like being in fear. So favor and disgrace are like fear.
Far from diminishing the appetite for power, suffering exasperates it.
Thoughtcrime is death. Thoughtcrime does not entail death. Thoughtcrime IS death. I have committed even before setting pen to paper the essential crime that contains all others unto itself.
The Puritans left England for America not because they couldn't be Puritans in their mother country, but because they were not allowed to force others to become Puritans; in the New World, of course, they could and did.
The greatest happiness of the greatest number is the foundation of morals and legislation.
The aim of the liar is simply to charm, to delight, to give pleasure. He is the very basis of civilized society.
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