Marcel Proust

"Habit is a second nature that keeps us from knowing the first, of which it has neither the cruelties nor the enchantments."

"We don't receive wisdom; we have to discover it for ourselves after a journey that no one else can take for us."

"The true paradises are the paradises that we have lost."

"One can choose what one does, but hardly one's own being."

"The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it."

"We are all obliged to pretend to a culture which we do not possess."

"Illness is the doctor to whom we pay most heed; to kindness, to knowledge, we make promises only; pain we obey."

"Even the genius must change with the times, or find himself left behind."

"The time of year most conducive to love is spring."

"Memory is deceptive because it is colored by today's events."

"The bonds that unite another person to ourself exist only in our mind."

"The real art of conversation is not in speaking, but in listening."

"If a little dreaming is dangerous, the cure for it is not to dream less but to dream more."

"We always think we will lose our memories and achieve immortality, but it is the opposite that is true."

"Beauty is a form of genius that is higher than genius itself."

"The past does not simply vanish; it accumulates, piles up around us."

"A person remains unforgettable until we forget them."

"Art is the only honest pursuit in life."

"The only paradise is the one we have already lost."

"Desire is a powerful force, but understanding is greater still."

"We do not see the world as it is; we see it as we are."

"Music is the arithmetic of sounds as optics is the geometry of light."

"Every reader finds himself; the writer's work is merely a kind of optical instrument."

"Sickness is like an illness of thought that cannot be cured by medicine alone."

"The places we have loved and the people we have loved remain in us always."

"A work of art is worth precisely as much as it makes us think."

"The only true paradox is that there are no paradoxes."

"Courage is the only emotion we cannot feign."

"Nature is a temple of columns that sometimes speak to us."

"We are healed of a suffering only by experiencing it to the full."