Marcel Proust
In Search of Lost Time, literature of memory
Most quoted
"The only true voyage of discovery, the only fountain of eternal youth, would be not to visit strange lands but to possess other eyes, to behold the universe through the eyes of another, of a hundred others, to behold the hundred universes that each of them beholds, that each of them is."
— from Remembrance of Things Past (À la recherche du temps perdu), 1923
"The only real voyage of discovery, the only fountain of Eternal Youth, would be not to visit strange lands but to possess other eyes, to behold the universe through the eyes of another, of a hundred others, to behold the hundred universes that each of them beholds, that each of them is."
— from In Search of Lost Time: The Captive, 1923
"The only true voyage of discovery, the only fountain of youth, would be not to visit strange lands but to possess other eyes, to behold the universe through the eyes of another, of a hundred others, to behold the hundred universes that each of them beholds, that each of them is."
— from Letter to René Blum
All quotes by Marcel Proust (133)
Happiness serves hardly any other purpose than to make unhappiness possible.
The true paradises are the lost paradises.
Illness is the doctor to whom we pay most heed to our body.
Like a fruit hidden among its leaves, which the fruit-picker has not seen because he is looking for it in the wrong place, happiness may be just within reach if we cease to seek it.
The bonds between ourselves and another person exist only in our minds. Memory as it grows fainter loosens them, and notwithstanding the illusion by which we want to be loved... we exist alone.
Time, which is the inventor of fresh loves, is also the recreator of faded ones.
As for the truths, Plato says that the most beautiful of them are those which taste of opinion.
The heart changes, and it is our worst sorrow; but we love more deeply because of it.
Our intonations are so perforce expressive that we wonder whether the words we speak are necessary.
The memory of a particular image is but regret for a particular moment.
In theory it is possible to multiply five million times five million; in practice, it would take longer than the universe has existed.
The artist’s work is to show us ourselves as we really are.
People wish to learn to swim and at the same time to keep one foot on the ground.
The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.
We don't receive wisdom; we must discover it for ourselves after a journey that no one can take for us or spare us.
Loving is a laborious process, and it takes time.
The universe is true for us only during the time when we are in it.
One does not learn anything except by giving oneself the trouble of learning it.
The moments we spend with others are the true measure of our lives.
Every kiss calls for another; every kiss is a mouth that seeks another mouth.
Contemporaries of Marcel Proust
Other Literatures born within 50 years of Marcel Proust (1871–1922).