Like everybody who is not in love, he thought one chose the person to be loved after endless deliberations and on the basis of particular qualities or advantages. – Marcel Proust
There is no man, however wise, who has not at some period of his youth said things, or lived in a way the consciousness of which is so unpleasant to him in later life that he would gladly, if he could, expunge it from his memory. – Marcel Proust
It is not because other people are dead that our affection for them grows faint, it is because we ourselves are dying. – Marcel Proust
Every reader finds himself. The writer’s work is merely a kind of optical instrument that makes it possible for the reader to discern what, without this book, he would perhaps never have seen in himself. – Marcel Proust
In theory one is aware that the earth revolves, but in practice one does not perceive it, the ground upon which one treads seems not to move, and one can live undisturbed. So it is with Time in one’s life. – Marcel Proust
People can have many different kinds of pleasure. The real one is that for which they will forsake the others. – Marcel Proust
The time at our disposal each day is elastic; the passions we feel dilate it, those that inspire us shrink it, and habit fills it. – Marcel Proust
As long as men are free to ask what they must, free to say what they think, free to think what they will, freedom can never be lost and science can never regress. – Marcel Proust
Let us be grateful to people who make us happy, they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom. – Marcel Proust
The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes. – Marcel Proust
Everything great in the world comes from neurotics. They alone have founded our religions and composed our masterpieces. – Marcel Proust
Your soul is a dark forest. But the trees are of a particular species, they are genealogical trees. – Marcel Proust
No exile at the South Pole or on the summit of Mont Blanc separates us more effectively from others than the practice of a hidden vice. – Marcel Proust