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 More Quotes by Marcel Proust More Quotes From Marcel Proust ...that melancholy which we feel when we cease to obey orders which, from one day to another, keep the future hidden, and realise that we have at last begun to live in real earnest, as a grown-up person, the life, the only life that any of us has at his disposal. Marcel Proust one-day real order The reason why a work of genius is not easily admired from the first is that the man who has created it is extraordinary, that few other men resemble him. It is his work itself that, by fertilising the rare minds capable of understanding it, will make them increase and multiply. Marcel Proust understanding mind men Adultery breathes new life into marriages which have been left for dead. Marcel Proust adultery breathe new-life Our intonations contain our philosophy of life, what each of us is constantly telling himself about things. Marcel Proust intonation life-philosophy philosophy Wars are fought for the benefit of oligarchs, triumphs bought with the blood of peons. Marcel Proust benefits war blood The thirst for something other than what we have…to bring something new, even if it is worse, some emotion, some sorrow; when our sensibility, which happiness has silenced like an idle harp, wants to resonate under some hand, even a rough one, and even if it might be broken by it. Marcel Proust broken inspiration hands When one becomes for an instant one's former self, that is to say different from what one has been for some time past, one's sensibility, being no longer dulled by habit, receives from the slightest stimulus vivid impressions which make everything that has preceded them fade into insignificance, impressions to which, because of their intensity, we attach ourselves with the momentary enthusiasm of a drunkard. Marcel Proust different self past Knowing does not always allow us to prevent, but at least the things that we know, we hold them, if not in our hands, but at leastin our thoughts where we may dispose of them at our whim, which gives us the illusion of power over them. Marcel Proust thoughtful power thinking Often it is just lack of imagination that keeps a man from suffering very much. Marcel Proust imagination suffering men It is the tragedy of other people that they are to us merely showcases for the very perishable collections of our own mind. Marcel Proust tragedy mind people Friendship is in the end no more than: " . . . a lie which seeks to make us believe that we are not irremediably alone." Marcel Proust ends believe lying What an abyss of uncertainty, whenever the mind feels overtaken by itself; when it, the seeker, is at the same time the dark region through which it must go seeking and where all its equipment will avail it nothing. Seek? More than that: create. It is face to face with something which does not yet exist, which it alone can make actual, which it alone can bring into the light of day. Marcel Proust light mind dark Those whose suffering is due to love are, as we say of certain invalids, their own physicians. Marcel Proust physicians certain suffering When I am not too sad to listen, music is my consolation. Marcel Proust consolation music-is music It is up to my spirit to find the truth. But how? Grave uncertainty, each time the spirit feels beyond its own comprehension; whenit, the explorer, is altogether to obscure land that it must search and where all its baggage is of no use. To search? That is not all: to create. Marcel Proust creativity land knowledge The images selected by memory are as arbitrary, as narrow, as elusive as those which the imagination had formed and reality has destroyed. There is no reason why, existing outside ourselves, a real place should conform to the pictures in our memory rather than those in our dreams. Marcel Proust real dream memories I have a horror of sunsets; they're so romantic, so operatic. Marcel Proust sunset horror emotion Nobility is often no more than the inner aspect which our egotistical feelings assume when we have not yet named and classified them. Marcel Proust egotistical assuming feelings I had come in time to learn that it was a mistake to smile a friendly smile when somebody made a fool of me. Marcel Proust mistake friendly time A person does not...stand motionless and clear before our eyes with his merits, his defects, his plans, his intentions with regard to ourself exposed on his surface...but is a shadow which we can never succeed in penetrating...a shadow behind which we can alternately imagine, with equal justification, that there burns the flame of hatred and of love. Marcel Proust flames eye hatred
