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
beauty beginning brings happiness joy otherwise promise
It has been said that beauty brings a promise of happiness, but it could be otherwise that the possibility of joy is the beginning of beauty.
art self joy
A sort of egotistical self-evaluation is unavoidable in those joys in which erudition and art mingle and in which aesthetic pleasure may become more acute, but not remain as pure.
happiness laughter joy
Happiness serves hardly any other purpose than to make unhappiness possible.
love-is joy one-love
La possession de ce qu'on aime est une joie plus grande encore que l'amour. Possessing what one loves is an even greater joy than love itself.
real character joy
... But all the feelings that evoke in us the joy or the misfortune of a real person are only produced in us through the intermediary of an image of that joy or that misfortune; the ingeniousness of the first novelist was in understanding that, in the apparatus of our emotions, since the image is the only essential element, the simplification which consists of purely and simply suppressing the factual characters is a definitive improvement.
becomes moral soon unhappy
As soon as one is unhappy one becomes moral
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
best second
We always end up doing the thing we are second best at.
decisions destined mind state
It is always thus, impelled by a state of mind which is destined not to last, that we make our irrevocable decisions
generally habit proportion
The regularity of a habit is generally in proportion to its absurdity.
expressing healed suffering
We are healed of a suffering only by expressing it to the full.
healed suffering
We are healed of a suffering only by experiencing it in full.
actions difficult stellar universe
The stellar universe is not so difficult of comprehension as the real actions of other people.