There is not a woman in the world the possession of whom is as… — Marcel Proust · Skopia

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Novel · Modernist literature

There is not a woman in the world the possession of whom is as precious as that of the truths which she reveals to us by causing us to suffer.

In the original French

Il n'y en a pas une seule dont la possession soit aussi précieuse que celle des vérités qu'elle nous découvre en nous faisant souffrir.

In Search of Lost Time · 1922

★ 4.5

Other tags relating to this quote

Topic

Learning from suffering

Genre

Modernist literature

Medium

Time

Person

Provenance

Current citation

Proust, Marcel. The Fugitive, edited and translated by Peter Collier. Penguin Classics, 2021.

Original citation

Proust, Marcel. Albertine disparue [Albertine Gone]. Paris: Gallimard, 1927.

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The bonds between ourselves and another person exist only in our minds. Memory as it grows fainter loosens them, and notwithstanding the illusion by which we want to be duped and which, out of love, friendship, politeness, deference, duty, we dupe other people, we exist alone. Man is the creature who cannot escape from himself, who knows other people only in himself, and when he asserts the contrary, he is lying.

In Search of Lost Time · 1922

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