Quotes from Marcel Proust

Swann's illness was the same that had killed his mother, who had been attacked by it at precisely the age which he had now reached. Our existences are in truth, owing to heredity, as full of cabalistic ciphers, of horoscopic castings as if there really were sorcerers in the world. And just as there is a certain duration of life for humanity in general, so there is one for families in particular, that is to say, in any one family, for the members of it who resemble one another.

cannot say, now that I come to think about it, how many times I heard the word "cousin

When I raised a corner of the heavy curtain of habit (the stupefying habit which during the whole course of our life conceals from us almost the whole universe, and in the dead of night, without changing the label, substitutes for the most dangerous or intoxicating poisons of life some kind of anodyne which does not procure any delight), such a memory would come back to me

Those who produce works of genius are not those who spend their days in the most refined company, whose conversation is the most brilliant, or whose culture is the broadest; they are those who have the ability to stop living for themselves and make a mirror of their personality, so that their lives, however nondescript they may be socially, or even in a way intellectually, are reflected in it. For genius lies in reflective power, and not in the intrinsic quality of the scene reflected.

A celebrated specialist in nervous diseases was, however, a more dangerous rival. He was a rubicund, jovial person, since, for one thing, the constant society of nervous wrecks did not prevent him from enjoying excellent health, but also so as to reassure his patients by the hearty merriment of his 'Good morning' and 'Good-bye,' while quite ready to lend the strength of his muscular arms to fastening them in strait-waistcoats later on

it appears that vice is far more common than one has been led to believe.

I realised that the passing of time does not necessarily bring about progress in the arts.

But above all my anguish was incomparably stronger this time, for many reasons, of which the most important was not perhaps that I had never tasted sensual pleasure with Mme de Guermantes or with Gilberte, but that since I did not see them every hour of every day and had no opportunity, and consequently experienced no need, to do so, my love for them lacked the all-powerful element of Habit.

There are far fewer ideas than men, therefore all men with similar ideas are alike. As

the morrow would not be different from all the days that had gone before;

The time which we have at our disposal every day is elastic; the passions expand it, those that we inspire contract it; and habit fills up what remains.

even men like Brichot who, before the war, had been militarist and reproached France for not being sufficiently so, were not satisfied with blaming Germany for the excesses of her militarism, but even condemned her for admiring her army.

The hope of being relieved gives him the courage to suffer.

Because the different chance events which bring us into contact with certain people do not coincide with the time during which we are in love with them, but, extending beyond it, may occur before it begins and repeat themselves after it has ended, the earliest appearances in our lives of a person destined later to captivate us assume retrospectively in our eyes the significance of a warning, a presage. This

really can't understand how Robert ever came to fall in love with her," the Duchesse went on. "Oh, I know one must never discuss that sort of thing!" she added, with the charming philosophical pout of a sentimentalist who had no illusions left. "I know that anybody can fall in love with anybody else.

Sleep is divine but by no means stable; the slightest shock makes it volatile. A friend to habit, it is kept night after night in tis appointed place by habit, more steadfast than itself, protected from any possible disturbance; but if it is displaced, if it is no longer subjugated, it melts away like a vapour. It is like youth and love, never to be recaptured.

É sempre devido a um estado de espírito não destinado a durar que se tomam resoluções definitivas.

Just as it is not by other men of intelligence that an intelligent man is afraid of being thought a fool, so it is not by a nobleman but by an oaf that a man of fashion is afraid of finding his social value underrated. Three-quarters of the mental ingenuity and the mendacious boasting squandered ever since the world began by people who are only cheapened thereby, have been aimed at inferiors.

For the most dangerous of all forms of concealment is that of the crime itself in the mind of the guilty party. His permanent consciousness of it prevents him from imagining how generally it is unknown, how readily a complete lie would be accepted, and on the other hand from realising at what degree of truth other people will detect, in words which he believes to be innocent, a confession.

Life is strewn with these miracles for which people who love can always hope.

When you heard anyone in the middle of a talk which was being deliberately kept off the Affair announce furtively some piece of political news, generally false but always devoutly to be wished, you could induce from the nature of his predictions where his heart lay.

But normally, when Albertine was sleeping, she seemed to have recovered her innocence. In the position where I had placed her, but which in sleep she quickly made her own, she seemed to be trusting herself to me. Her face had lost any expression of deviousness or vulgarity, and when she raised her arm toward me or laid her hand upon me, each of us seemed entirely given up to the other, indissolubly joined.

The truth which one puts into one's words does not make a direct path for itself, is not supported by irresistible evidence.

A calma que resultava de minhas angústias findas dava-me uma alegria extraordinária, não menos que a espera, a sede e o medo do perigo.