Paul Valéry
[Writer and poet, b. 1871, Sète, France, d. 1945, Paris.]

 What is Plato’s famous cave if not a camera obscura, the largest ever conceived, I suppose? If Plato reduced the mouth of his grotto to a tiny hole and applied a sensitized coat to the wall that served as his screen, by developing the rear of the cave he could have obtained a gigantic film, and heaven knows what astounding conclusions he might have left regarding the nature of our knowledge and the essence of our ideas... 
 ...a few days old he was brought before a lens; decades later the man he grew into might stand amazed and affected before the photograph of the baby whose future he has used up. 
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