1,085 Quotes by Marcel Proust

We may, indeed, say that the hour of death is uncertain, but when we say this we think of that hour as situated in a vague and remote expanse of time; it does not occur to us that it can have any connexion with the day that has already dawned and can mean that death -- or its first assault and partial possession of us, after which it will never leave hold of us again -- may occur this very afternoon, so far from uncertain, this afternoon whose time-table, hour by hour, has been settled in advance.

Knowing does not always allow us to prevent, but at least the things that we know, we hold them, if not in our hands, but at leastin our thoughts where we may dispose of them at our whim, which gives us the illusion of power over them.

The paradoxes of today are the prejudices of tomorrow, since the most benighted and the most deplorable prejudices have had their moment of novelty when fashion lent them its fragile grace.

Until I saw Chardin's painting, I never realized how much beauty lay around me in my parents' house, in the half-cleared table, in the corner of a tablecloth left awry, in the knife beside the empty oyster shell.

Sometimes in this life, under the stress of an exceptional emotion, people do say what they think.

All the mind's activity is easy if it is not subjected to reality.

Fashions, being themselves begotten of the desire for change, are quick to change also.

Let us leave pretty women to men devoid of imagination.

Do not wait for life. Do not long for it. Be aware, always and at every moment, that the miracle is in the here and now.