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
self feelings lasts
I cannot express the uneasiness caused in me by this intrusion of mystery and beauty into a room I had at last filled with myself to the point of paying no more attention to the room than to that self. The anesthetizing influence of habit having ceased, I would begin to have thoughts, and feelings, and they are such sad things.
journey love-is feelings
When we are in love, our love is too big a thing for us to be able altogether to contain it within ourselves. It radiates towards the loved one, finds there a surface which arrests it, forcing it to return to its starting-point, and it is this repercussion of our own feeling which we call the other's feelings and which charms us more then than on its outward journey because we do not recognise it as having originated in ourselves.
feelings different continuing
One cannot change, that is to say become a different person, while continuing to acquiesce to the feelings of the person one has ceased to be.
expression drawing feelings
Most of the supposed expressions of our feelings merely relieve us of them by drawing them out of us in an indistinct form that does not teach us to know them.
feelings assuming egotistical
Nobility is often no more than the inner aspect which our egotistical feelings assume when we have not yet named and classified them.
men profound feelings
A woman whom we need and who makes us suffer elicits from us a whole gamut of feelings far more profound and vital than a man of genius who interests us.
actions difficult stellar universe
The stellar universe is not so difficult of comprehension as the real actions of other people.
becomes moral soon unhappy
As soon as one is unhappy one becomes moral
contract disposal expand fills habit inspire passions remains time
The time which we have at our disposal every day is elastic; the passions we feel expand it, those that we inspire contract it, and habit fills up what remains
consists discovery landscapes seeking voyage
The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.
advantage desires fresh future love mind piece secured since
There can be no piece of mind in love, since the advantage one has secured is never anything but a fresh starting-point for future desires
good indeed parts seldom
It is seldom indeed that one parts on good terms, because if one were on good terms, one would not part
generally habit proportion
The regularity of a habit is generally in proportion to its absurdity.
best second
We always end up doing the thing we are second best at.