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A clear view of certain inferiorities in no way diminishes affection; on the contrary, love makes us consider them charming.
Marcel Proust -
Doubtless to every man the life of any other individual reaches out into obscurity down unsuspected paths.
Marcel Proust -
When nothing remains of our remote past, after the people are dead and the things are destroyed, alone - more fragile yet longer lived, more immaterial, more steadfast, more faithful, the smell and taste of things persist, like souls, ready and waiting to remind us; over the ruin of all the rest they bear unflinchingly on their almost impalpable droplet the immense edifice of memory.
Marcel Proust -
Reason opens our eyes; an error we have dispelled gives us an additional sense.
Marcel Proust -
The pleasure that all men experience in mulling over their recollections is often keenest in those whom the tyranny of a malady and the daily hope of its cure keep, on the one hand, from seeking in nature images resembling those recollections and yet, on the other hand, leave confident that they will soon be able to do so. This hope adds an element of expectancy to memories and saves them from being mere recollections of a dead past.
Marcel Proust -
Chemists at least can use analysis; patients suffering from a malady whose cause is unknown to them can call a doctor; criminal cases are more or less cleared up by the examining magistrate. But as for the disconcerting acts of our fellow men, we rarely discover their motives.
Marcel Proust -
We hear in retrospect what we have understood.
Marcel Proust -
Little by little, in one instance after another, life shows us that what is most important to the heart and to the mind is taught us not by the reason but by the other faculties. The the intellect itself, recognizing the superiority of these faculties, makes a reasoned abdication and accepts a position as their collaborator and servant.
Marcel Proust -
The testimony of the senses is an operation of the mind in which belief creates evidence.
Marcel Proust -
“Usually, the older their photographs are, the older women look in them.”
- Marcel Proust
