Paul Valery Simple Quotations

Everything that is simple is theoratically false, everything that is complicated is pragmatically useless.

The mere notion of photography, when we introduce it into our meditation on the genesis of historical knowledge and its true value, suggests the simple question: Could such and such a fact, as it is narrated here, have been photographed?

What is simple is false and what is not is useless.

Just as water, gas, and electricity are brought into our houses from far off to satisfy our needs in response to a minimal effort, so we shall be supplied with visual or auditory images, which will appear and disappear at a simple movement of the hand, hardly more than a sign.

What is simple is wrong, and what is complicated cannot be understood.