Irrespective of the actual post content, I've dug up a proper source for the title quote and added it to Wikiquote: https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Paul_Val%C3%A9

Irrespective of the actual post content, I've dug up a proper source for the title quote and added it to Wikiquote: https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Paul_Val%C3%A9ry#Degas_Danse_Dessin_(1937) https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Paul_Val%C3%A9ry#Degas_Danse_D... It is Paul Valery, but per Adrian Kohn's A Way to Look at Things by Not Forgetting Their Names, Valery may be (intentionally?) misreading Blaise Pascal just to get a jibe in. See footnote 3, bottom of page 11: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2674801 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2674801