More quotes by Marcel Proust

"We don't receive wisdom; we must discover it for ourselves after a journey that no one can take for us or spare us."
"Only through art can we emerge from ourselves and know what another person sees."
"It is grief that develops the powers of the mind."
"Let us be grateful to the people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom."
"Reading is at the threshold of the spiritual life; it can introduce us to it. It does not constitute it ... There are certain cases of spiritual depression in which reading can become a sort of curative discipline ... reintroducing a lazy mind into the life of the Spirit."