Marcel Proust Life Quotations

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.

In theory one is aware that the earth revolves, but in practice one does not perceive it, the ground upon which one treads seems not to move, and one can live undisturbed. So it is with Time in one's life.

We do not succeed in changing things according to our desire, but gradually our desire changes. The situation that we hoped to change because it was intolerable becomes unimportant. We have not managed to surmount the obstacle, as we were absolutely determined to do, but life has taken us round it, led us past it, and then if we turn round to gaze at the remote past, we can barely catch sight of it, so imperceptible has it become.

There is no man, however wise, who has not at some period of his youth said things, or lived in a way the consciousness of which is so unpleasant to him in later life that he would gladly, if he could, expunge it from his memory.

Our intonations contain our philosophy of life, what each of us is constantly telling himself about things.

Lies are essential to humanity. They are perhaps as important as the pursuit of pleasure and moreover are dictated by that pursuit.

The only true voyage of discovery, . . . would be not to visit strange lands but to possess other eyes.

Adultery breathes new life into marriages which have been left for dead.

L'adulte' re introduit l'esprit dans la lettre quebien souvent le mariage e u" t laisse e morte. Adultery breathes new life into marriages which have been left for dead.

For theories and schools, like microbes and corpuscles, devour one another and by their strife ensure the continuity of life.

We feel in one world, we think and name in another. Between the two we can set up a system of references, but we cannot fill in the gap.