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Happiness is beneficial for the body, but it is grief that develops the powers of the… — Marcel Proust

Novel · Modernist literature

Happiness is beneficial for the body, but it is grief that develops the powers of the mind.

In the original French

Le bonheur est salutaire pour le corps, mais c'est le chagrin qui développe les forces de l'esprit.

Marcel Proust
In Search of Lost Time · 1922
★ 2.1
Other tags relating to this quote
Topic
HappinessGriefPersonal growth
Genre
Modernist literature
Medium
Novel
Time
1922
Person
Marcel Proust
Provenance
Current citation
Proust, Marcel. Finding Time Again, edited and translated by Ian Patterson. Penguin Classics, 2023.
Original citation
Proust, Marcel. Le Temps retrouvé [Time Regained]. Paris: Gallimard, 1927.

Related quotes

Other quotes that share a subject, a time, or a voice with this one.

But what was there to say? Only that there were tears. Only that Quietness and Emptiness fitted together like stacked spoons. Only that there was a snuffling in the hollows at the base of a lovely throat. Only that a hard honey-colored shoulder had a semicircle of teethmarks on it. Only that they held each other close, long after it was over. Only that what they shared that night was not happiness, but hideous grief. Only that once again they broke the Love Laws. That lay down who should be loved. And how. And how much.

Arundhati Roy
The God of Small Things · 1997
Another quote aboutTopic·Grief

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