Blood And Time

You have neither the patience that weaves long lines nor a feeling for the irregular, nor a sense of the fittest place for a thing. For you intelligence is not one thing among many. You worship it as if it were an omnipotent beast. A man intoxicated on it believes his own thoughts are legal decision, or facts themselves born of the crowd and time. He confuses his quick changes of heart with the imperceptible variation of real forms and enduring Beings. You are in love with intelligence, until it frightens you. For your ideas are terrifying and your hearts are faint. Your acts of pity and cruelty are absurd, committed with no calm, as if they were irresitible. Finally, you fear blood more and more. Blood and time.
--Paul Valéry
from "Writing at the Yalu River" (1895)