Marcel Proust
Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust (10 July 1871 – 18 November 1922) was a French novelist, critic, and essayist best known for his monumental À la recherche du temps perdu (In Search of Lost Time; earlier translated as Remembrance of Things Past). It was published in seven parts between 1913 and 1927.
Read more about Marcel Proust: Biography, Early Writing, In Search of Lost Time, Bibliography
Famous quotes by marcel proust:
“Our intellect is not the most subtle, the most powerful, the most appropriate, instrument for revealing the truth. It is life that, little by little, example by example, permits us to see that what is most important to our heart, or to our mind, is learned not by reasoning but through other agencies. Then it is that the intellect, observing their superiority, abdicates its control to them upon reasoned grounds and agrees to become their collaborator and lackey.”
—Marcel Proust (1871–1922)
“It is, after all, very interesting that sound can reflect like water, like a mirror. And notice that Vinteuil’s phrase only shows me that to which I did not pay attention at the time. Of my worries, of my loves at that time, it does not recall a thing, it has made the exchange.”
—Marcel Proust (1871–1922)
“I knew very well that this hope was chimerical. I was like a pauper who mingles fewer tears with his dry bread if he tells himself that at any moment a stranger will bequeath to him his fortune. We must all, in order to make reality more tolerable, keep alive in us a few little follies.”
—Marcel Proust (1871–1922)
“Happiness serves hardly any other purpose than to make unhappiness possible.”
—Marcel Proust (1871–1922)
“As the Arab proverb says, ‘The dog barks and the caravan passes’. After having dropped this quotation, Mr. Norpois stopped to judge the effect it had on us. It was great; the proverb was known to us: it had been replaced that year among men of high worth by this other: ‘Whoever sows the wind reaps the storm’, which had needed some rest since it was not as indefatigable and hardy as, ‘Working for the King of Prussia’.”
—Marcel Proust (1871–1922)