Quotes from Marcel Proust

Car ce que nous croyons notre amour, notre jalousie, ce n'est pas une même passion continue, indivisible. Ils se composent d'une infinité d'amours successifs, de jalousies différentes et qui sont éphémères, mais par leur multitude ininterrompue donnent l'impression de la continuité, l'illusion de l'unité.

the rule among the human race—a rule that naturally admits of exceptions—is that the reputedly hard are the weak whom nobody wanted, and that the strong, caring little whether they are wanted or not, have alone that gentleness which the vulgar herd mistakes for weakness.

Actually, the very notion that it will come within reach—that there is no fulfillment which will be forever denied us, as long as it has ceased to be a fulfillment we desire—is one which, though true, is only partly true. By the time it comes to us, we have become indifferent to it.

Comtesse Molé did not justify the extraordinary reputation for intelligence that she had acquired, which made one think of those mediocre actors or novelists who, at certain periods, are hailed as men of genius, either because of the mediocrity of their competitors, among whom there is no artist capable of revealing what is meant by true talent, or because of the mediocrity of the public, which, did there exist an extraordinary individuality, would be incapable of understanding it.

Like everybody who is not in love, he imagined that one chooses the person one loves after endless deliberation and on the strength of diverse qualities and advantages.

the fine binding of his volume of Balzac I asked him which was his favourite novel in the Comédie Humaine, he replied, his thoughts irresistibly attracted to the same topic: "Either one thing or the other, a tiny miniature like the Curé de Tours and the Femme abandonnée, or one of the great frescoes like the series of Illusions perdues. What! You've never read Illusions perdues?

Ces fleurs sont d'un rose vraiment céleste, dit Legrandin, je veux dire couleur de ciel rose. Car il y a un rose ciel comme il y a un bleu ciel.

Chaque fois qu'elle voyait aux autres un avantage si petit fût-il qu'elle n'avait pas, elle se persuadait que c'était non un avantage mais un mal et les plaignait pour ne pas avoir à les envier.

the soul as a series of selves juxtaposed in the course of life but distinct from each other which would die in turn or take turn about like those different selves

and helped me better understand what a contradiction it is to search in reality for memory's pictures, which would never have the charm that comes to them from memory itself and from not being perceived by the senses.

We consider it innocent to desire a thing and atrocious that the other person should desire it.

For to the disturbances of memory are linked the intermittences of the heart.

I had not yet reached this stage. At one time it was my memory made more clear by some intellectual excitement — such as reading a book — which revived my grief, at other times it was on the contrary my grief — when it was aroused, for instance, by the anguish of a spell of stormy weather — which raised higher, brought nearer to the light, some memory of our love.

But the ideas that leave no possibility of a rejoinder are those that are not properly speaking ideas, those that, by being supported by nothing, find nothing to attach to in the other's mind: on the one side, no brotherly branch is held out, and on the other, there is nothing but a vacuum. The arguments advanced by M. de Norpois (on questions of art) were indisputable because they were devoid of reality.

A verdade que depositamos nas palavras não abre caminho diretamente, não tem irresistível evidência. Cumpre que decorra o tempo necessário para que se possa formar no interlocutor uma verdade da mesma espécie. E então o adversário político, que, apesar de raciocínios e provas, considerava traidor ao sectário da doutrina oposta, chega a compartilhar das detestadas convicções quando já não interessam àquele que antes tentava inutilmente difundi-las.

And as she had no tact, hated family life (that dissolvent of the little nucleus), after telling me that she remembered, long ago, seeing my great-grandfather, and after speaking of him as of somebody who was almost an idiot, who would have been incapable of understanding the little group, and who, to use her expression, "was not one of us," she said to me: "Families are such a bore, the only thing is to get right away from them

corps astral à Golo.

The true greatness of art is to find, grasp, and bring out that reality which we all live a great distance from; that reality which we run the risk of dying without having known, which is quite simply our own life.

Hata, ba?kalar?n?n tatl?l???na, zekâs?na kay?ts?z kalmam?zd?r.

Most of our faculties lie dormant because they can rely upon Habit, which knows what there is to be done and has no need of their services. But on this morning of travel, the interruption of the routine of my existence, the unfamiliar place and time, had made their presence indispensable. My habits...for once were missing, and all my faculties came hurrying to take their place.

La force qui fait le plus de fois le tour de la terre en une seconde, ce n'est pas l'électricité, c'est la douleur.

enough to make the Avenue different. The places we have known do not belong solely to the world of space in which we situate them for our greater convenience. They were only a thin slice among contiguous impressions which formed our life at that time; the memory of a certain image is but regret for a certain moment; and houses, roads, avenues are as fleeting, alas, as the years.

I must have suffered intensely during this period, but I realise that it was inevitable. We are healed of a suffering only by experiencing it to the full.

When I saw any external object, my consciousness that I was seeing it would remain between me and it, enclosing it in a slender, incorporeal outline which prevented me from ever coming directly in contact with the material form;