Marcel Proust
Marcel Proust
Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proustwas a French novelist, critic, and essayist best known for his monumental novel À la recherche du temps perdu, published in seven parts between 1913 and 1927. He is considered by many to be one of the greatest authors...
NationalityFrench
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth10 July 1871
CountryFrance
discipline difficult following
The one thing more difficult than following a regimen is not imposing it on others.
ideas confusion degrees
Everybody calls "clear" those ideas which have the same degree of confusion as his own.
real eye discovery
Le veritable voyage de decouverte ne consiste pas a chercher de nouveaux paysages, mais a avoir de nouveaux yeux. (The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.)
individual plagiarism difficult
The human plagiarism which is most difficult to avoid, for individuals... is the plagiarism of ourselves.
facts spheres belief
The facts of life do not penetrate to the sphere in which our beliefs are cherished; they did not engender those beliefs, and they are powerless to destroy them.
mistake friendly fool
I had come in time to learn that it was a mistake to smile a friendly smile when somebody made a fool of me.
moon sky white
Sometimes in the afternoon sky the moon would pass white as a cloud, furtive, lusterless, like an actress who does not have to perform yet and who, from the audience, in street clothes, watches the other actors for a moment, making herself inconspicuous, not wanting anyone to pay attention to her.
suffering world possession
There is not a woman in the world the possession of whom is as precious as that of the truths which she reveals to us by causing us to suffer.
health years medicine
In summoning even the wisest of physicians to our aid, it is probably that he is relying upon a scientific "truth", the error of which will become obvious in just a few years' time.
ideas opposites doe
There is no idea that does not carry in itself a possible refutation, no word that does not imply its opposite.
abnormal states
In love, happiness is an abnormal state.
illness
Death is in truth an illness from which we recover
imagination mind slides
The inertia of the mind urges it to slide down the easy slope of imagination, rather than to climb the steep slope of introspection.
egoism humanitarianism humans
Human altruism which is not egoism, is sterile.