The stellar universe is not so difficult to understand as the real actions of other people, especially of the people with whom we are in love. Marcel Proust More Quotes by Marcel Proust More Quotes From Marcel Proust The real stars of society are tired of appearing there. He who is curious to gaze at them must often migrate to another hemisphere, where they are more or less alone. Marcel Proust tired stars real There is probably not one person, however great his virtue, who cannot be led by the complexities of life's circumstances to a familiarity with the vices he condemns the most vehemently--without his completely recognizing this vice which, disguised as certain events, touches him and wounds him: strange words, an inexplicable attitude, on a given night, of the person whom he otherwise has so many reasons to love. Marcel Proust tolerance attitude night People who are not in love fail to understand how an intelligent man can suffer because of a very ordinary woman. This is like being surprised that anyone should be stricken with cholera because of a creature so insignificant as the common bacillus. Marcel Proust intelligent love men Reality is never more than a first step towards an unknown on the road to which one can never progress very far. Marcel Proust progress reality firsts A woman one loves rarely suffices for all our needs, so we deceive her with another whom we do not love. Marcel Proust hype infidelity love Laissons les jolies femmes aux hommes sans imagination. Leave the pretty women for the men without imagination. Marcel Proust pretty-woman imagination men Lies are essential to humanity. They are perhaps as important as the pursuit of pleasure and moreover are dictated by that pursuit. Marcel Proust success life lying Photography is the product of complete alienation. Marcel Proust alienation products photography The artist who gives up an hour of work for an hour of conversation with a friend knows that he is sacrificing a reality for something that does not exist (our friends being friends only in the light of an agreeable folly which travels with us through life and to which we readily accommodate ourselves, but which at the bottom of our hearts we know to be no more reasonable than the delusion of the man who talks to the furniture because he believes that it is alive.). Marcel Proust giving-up heart believe The character we exhibit in the latter half of our life need not necessarily be, though it often is, our original character, developed further, dried up, exaggerated, or diminished. It can be its exact opposite, like a suit worn inside out. Marcel Proust often-is opposites character Reading is at the threshold of spiritual life; it can introduce us to it; it does not constitute it. There are, however, certain cases, certain pathological cases, so to speak, of spiritual depression in which reading can become a sort of curative discipline and assume the task, through repeated stimulation, of continuously reintroducing a lazy mind into the life of the spirit. Marcel Proust discipline reading spiritual These dreams reminded me that, since I wished some day to become a writer, it was high time to decide what sort of books I was going to write. But as soon as I asked myself the question, and tried to discover some subject to which I could impart a philosophical significance of infinite value, my mind would stop like a clock, my consciousness would be faced with a blank, I would feel either that I was wholly devoid of talent or perhaps that some malady of the brain was hindering its development. Marcel Proust philosophical dream book When a belief vanishes, there survives it -- more and more vigorously so as to cloak the absence of the power, now lost to us, of imparting reality to new things -- a fetishistic attachment to the old things which it did once animate, as if it was in them and not in ourselves that the divine spark resided, and as if our present incredulity had a contingent cause -- the death of the gods. Marcel Proust old-things attachment reality When we have passed a certain age, the soul of the child we were and the souls of the dead from whom we have sprung come to lavish on us their riches and their spells. Marcel Proust soul age children Our shadows, now parallel, now close together and joined, traced an exquisite pattern at our feet. Marcel Proust shadow feet together All the mind's activity is easy if it is not subjected to reality. Marcel Proust easy mind reality For often I have wished to see a person again without realising that it was simply because that personal recalled to me a hedge of hawthorns in blossom, and I have been led to believe, and to make someone else believe, in a renewal of affection, by what was no more than an inclination to travel. Marcel Proust renewal affection believe To achieve accurate knowledge of others, if such a thing were possible, we could only ever arrive at it through the slow and unsure recognition of our own initial optical inaccuracies. However, such knowledge is not possible: for, while our vision of others is being adjusted, they, who are not made of mere brute matter, are also changing; we think we have managed to see them more clearly, but they shift; and when we believe we have them fully in focus, it is merely our older images of them that we have clarified, but which are themselves already out of date. Marcel Proust focus believe thinking In the sort of screen dappled with different states of mind which my consciousness would simultaneously unfold while I read, and which ranged from the aspirations hidden deepest within me to the completely exterior vision of the horizon which I had, at the bottom of the garden, before my eyes, what was first in me, innermost, the constantly moving handle that controlled the rest, was my belief in the philosophical richness and beauty of the book I was reading, and my desire to appropriate them for myself, whatever that book might be. Marcel Proust philosophical book moving We can sometimes find a person again, but we cannot abolish time. And so on until the unforeseen day, gloomy as a winter night, when one no longer seeks that girl, or any other, when to find her would actually scare one. For one no longer feels that one has attractions enough to please, or strength enough to love. Not, of course, that one is in the strict sense of the word impotent. And as for loving, one would love more than ever. But one feels that it is too big an undertaking for the little strength one has left. Marcel Proust girl winter night
