Marcel Proust Quotes

Everything's fine today, that is our illusion.

When I was in my twenties, I thought I was bulletproof.

On a very long and very high wire, I will not hope to not be blown off by high winds. I will have the certitude that such could not happen.

I don't necessarily view death as something negative. Death gives meaning to life. Living in fear of death is living in denial. Actually, it's not really living at all, because there is no life without death. It's two sides of the one. You can't pick up one side and say, I'm just going to use the 'heads' side. No. It doesn't work like that. You have to pick up both sides because nothing is promised to anyone in this world besides death.

In them, she saw the sham of her life laid out like a book, the foolish belief that she, that anyone, could escape the consequences of this world, could flee from death. That was the deceit. The true serpent in the garden.

Security doesn't rob ambition; the illusion of security robs ambition.

They want to criticize you, let them criticize and do not worry. Just be transparent with your people and tell them this is the reality.

I'm too old to be governed by fear of dumb people.

But then I remembered something Grandmere had once assured me of: No one has ever died of embarrassment-never, not once in the whole history of time.

All is but illusion and disaster.

When the wayfarer whistles in the dark, he may be disavowing his timidity, but he does not see any the more clearly for doing so.

A man´s level of dignity must always be above his level of fear.

It is only theory that makes men completely incautious.

safety and love are both illusions!

When you have something in life that you want to accomplish greatly, you have to be willing to give up your happiness…I’ve lost all my sensitivity as far as being embarrassed, being shy, you just have to lose that.

We falsely interpret the world around us. We ignore evidence that doesn't support our prior beliefs and we convince ourselves we know things we don. We think we know things we don't know.

Do not abandon trust when your ego thinks things should be different than they are.

Innocence gave me confidence to go up against reality.

What a horror it would have been if the world was real, because if the world was real, it would be immortal.

I regret nothing, says arrogance; I will regret nothing, says inexperience.

"Bobby Tom told me he’s not afraid of the Chargers’ defense." "Bobby Tom’ll tell you he’s not afraid of nuclear war, so I wouldn’t put too much stock in his opinion."

Can you imagine a life with no fear? What if faith, not fear, was your default reaction to threats?

I respect what I do deeply. I don't get nervous to the point of fear.

If they [the dead] should speak, it would be found that in matters of opinion no departed person was exactly what he had passed for in life. They would realise, deep down, that they, and whole nations along with them, are not really what they seem to be-and never can be.

By 'coming to terms with life' I mean: the reality of death has become a definite part of my life; my life has, so to speak, been extended by death, by my looking death in the eye and accepting it, by accepting destruction as part of life and no longer wasting my energies on fear of death or the refusal to acknowledge its inevitability. It sounds paradoxical: by excluding death from our life we cannot live a full life, and by admitting death into our life we enlarge and enrich it.