Marcel Proust

Marcel Proust

Novelist

Marcel Proust was a French novelist known for his profound exploration of memory and time in his major work, 'In Search of Lost Time.'

Reality People Men Art Book Love
Born
July 10, 1871
Died
November 18, 1922
Quotes
429
Rank
#142

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Marcel Proust quotes (page 11 of 22)

429 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.

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"At a certain age, we have already been struck by love; it no longer develops alone, according to its own mysteries and fateful laws while our hearts stand by startled and passive. We come to its assistanceRecognizing one of its symptoms, we recall, we bring back to life the others. Since we possess its song engraved in its totality within us, we do not need for a woman to tell us the beginning--filled with admiration inspired by beauty--to find the continuation."

Song Heart Law
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"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."

Reality Attachment Old Things
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"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."

Eye Flames Hatred
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"Our vanity, our passions, our spirit of imitation, our abstract intelligence, our habits have long been at work, and it is the task of art to undo this work of theirs, making us travel back in the direction from which we have come to the depths where what has really existed lies unknown within us."

Art Lying Passion
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"The tiny, initial clue ... by allowing us to imagine what we do not know, stimulates a desire for knowledge."

Knowledge Desire Tiny
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"Three-quarters of the sicknesses of intelligent people come from their intelligence. They need at least a doctor who can understand this sickness."

Intelligent Gambling Doctors
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"There is no man, however wise, who has not at some period of his youth said things, or lived in a way the consciousness of which is so unpleasant to him in later life that he would gladly, if he could, expunge it from his memory."

Life Wise Wisdom
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"Nobility is often no more than the inner aspect which our egotistical feelings assume when we have not yet named and classified them."

Feelings Assuming Egotistical
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"I had come in time to learn that it was a mistake to smile a friendly smile when somebody made a fool of me."

Time Mistake Friendly
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"Our memory is like a shop in the window of which is exposed now one, now another photograph of the same person. And as a rule the most recent exhibit remains for some time the only one to be seen."

Memories Window Photograph
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"No sooner had the warm liquid mixed with the crumbs touched my palate than a shudder ran through me and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary thing that was happening to me."

Liquid Crumbs Palate
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"The paradoxes of today are the prejudices of tomorrow, since the most benighted and the most deplorable prejudices have had their moment of novelty when fashion lent them its fragile grace."

Fashion Grace Prejudice
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"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."

Attitude Night Tolerance
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"There can be no peace of mind in love, since the advantage one has secured is never anything but a fresh starting-point for future desires."

Love Mind Desire
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"There is no man ... however wise, who has not at some period of his youth said things, or lived a life, the memory of which is so unpleasant to him that he would gladly expunge it. And yet he ought not entirely to regret it, because he cannot be certain that he has indeed become a wise man -- so far as it is possible for any of us to be wise -- unless he has passed through all the fatuous or unwholesome incarnations by which that ultimate stage must be preceded."

Wise Wisdom Memories
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"Existence is of little interest save on days when the dust of realities is mingled with magic sand."

Reality Dust Magic
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"The sight of the little madeleine had recalled nothing to my mind before I tasted it..."

Sight Mind Littles
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"Neurosis has an absolute genius for malingering. There is no illness which it cannot counterfeit perfectly. If it is capable of deceiving the doctor, how should it fail to deceive the patient"

Lying Doctors Neurosis
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