The duty and the task of a writer are those of an interpreter. Marcel Proust More Quotes by Marcel Proust More Quotes From Marcel Proust We do not receive wisdom, we must discover it for ourselves, after a journey through the wilderness which no one else can make for us, which no one can spare us, for our wisdom is the point of view from which we come at last to regard the world. Marcel Proust learningwisdomjourney Thanks to art, instead of seeing one world only, our own, we see that world multiply itself and we have at our disposal as many worlds as there are original artists, worlds more different one from the other than those which revolve in infinite space, worlds which, centuries after the extinction of the fire from which their light first emanated, whether it is called Rembrandt or Vermeer, send us still each one its special radiance. Marcel Proust spacefireart We must never be afraid to go too far, for truth lies beyond. Marcel Proust successmotivationallying In a separation it is the one who is not really in love who says the more tender things. Marcel Proust literaturelovereality We say that the hour of death cannot be forecast, but when we say this we imagine that hour as placed in an obscure and distant future. It never occurs to us that it has any connection with the day already begun or that death could arrive this same afternoon, this afternoon which is so certain and which has every hour filled in advance. Marcel Proust filled-ingrievingdeath 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 freedommenscience There are perhaps no days of our childhood we lived so fully as those we spent with a favorite book. Marcel Proust unhappy-childhoodreadingbook Love is a striking example of how little reality means to us. Marcel Proust love-ismeanreality Everything great in the world comes from neurotics. They alone have founded our religions and composed our masterpieces. Marcel Proust literatureworldreligion A photograph acquires something of the dignity which it ordinarily lacks when it ceases to be a reproduction of reality and shows us things that no longer exist. Marcel Proust dignityphotographyreality Even though our lives wander, our memories remain in one place. Marcel Proust our-memorieswandermemories It comes so soon, the moment when there is nothing left to wait for. Marcel Proust leftmomentswaiting If a little dreaming is dangerous, the cure for it is not to dream less but to dream more, to dream all the time. Marcel Proust dreaminspiringlove Time, which changes people, does not alter the image we have retained of them. Marcel Proust changetimepeople The only true voyage, the only bath in the Fountain of Youth, would be not to visit strange lands but to possess other eyes, to see the universe through the eyes of another, of a hundred others, to see the hundred universes that each of them sees, that each of them is; and this we do [with great artists]; with artists like these we do really fly from star to star. Marcel Proust starseyeartist 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 passioneach-dayinspire When from a long distant past nothing subsists after the things are Marcel Proust smellfoodpast A change in the weather is sufficient to recreate the world and ourselves. Marcel Proust rainy-dayweatherworld Our intellect is not the most subtle, the most powerful, the most appropriate, instrument for revealing the truth. It is life that, little by little, example by example, permits us to see that what is most important to our heart, or to our mind, is learned not by reasoning but through other agencies. Then it is that the intellect, observing their superiority, abdicates its control to them upon reasoned grounds and agrees to become their collaborator and lackey. Marcel Proust intelligentpowerfulheart The only true voyage of discovery, . . . would be not to visit strange lands but to possess other eyes. Marcel Proust eyelifetravel
