Marcel Proust Quotes about Past

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Remembrance of things past is not necessarily the remembrance of things as they were.

Remembrance of things past is not necessarily the remembrance of things as they were.

Marcel Proust

Memories, Past, Remembrance

When from a long distant past nothing subsists after the things are broken and scattered, the smell and taste of things remain.

Marcel Proust

Food, Past, Smell

Marcel Proust (2006). “Remembrance of Things Past”, p.63, Wordsworth Editions

But when from a long-distant past nothing subsists, after the people are dead, after the things are broken and scattered, taste and smell alone, more fragile but more enduring, more unsubstantial, more persistent, more faithful, remain poised a long time, like souls, remembering, waiting, hoping, amid the ruins of all the rest; and bear unflinchingly, in the tiny and almost impalpable drop of their essence, the vast structure of recollection.

Marcel Proust

Past, Essence, Smell

Marcel Proust (2015). “Swann's Way”, p.50, Vintage

The moments of the past do not remain still; they retain in our memory the motion which drew them towards the future, towards a future which has itself become the past, and draw us on in their train.

Marcel Proust

Memories, Past, Moments

Marcel Proust (2015). “Remembrance of Things Past: The Sweet Cheat Gone”, p.64, Marcel Proust

The past not merely is not fugitive, it remains present.

Marcel Proust

Past, Fugitive, Remains

Marcel Proust (2016). “In Search of Lost Time: Or “Á la Recherche du temps perdu””, p.1278, Jester House Publishing

As to the pretty girls who went past, from the day on which I had first known that their cheeks could be kissed, I had become curious about their souls. And the Universe had appeared to me more interesting.

Marcel Proust

Girl, Women, Past

Marcel Proust (2006). “Remembrance of Things Past”, p.648, Wordsworth Editions

Perfume is that last and best reserve of the past, the one which when all out tears have run dry, can make us cry again!

Marcel Proust

Running, Past, Tears

And so it is with our own past. It is a labour in vain to attempt to recapture it: all the efforts of our intellect must prove futile. The past is hidden somewhere outside the realm, beyond the reach of intellect, in some material object (in the sensation which that material object will give us) of which we have no inkling. And it depends on chance whether or not we come upon this object before we ourselves must die.

Marcel Proust

Past, Giving, Effort

Marcel Proust (2010). “In Search Of Lost Time Vol 1: Swann's Way”, p.51, Random House

I understood that all the material of a literary work was in my past life, I understood that I had acquired it in the midst of frivolous amusements, in idleness, in tenderness and in pain, stored up by me without my divining its destination or even its survival, as the seed has in reserve all the ingredients which will nourish the plant.

Marcel Proust

Pain, Past, Survival

Marcel Proust (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Marcel Proust (Illustrated)”, p.4860, Delphi Classics

When one becomes for an instant one's former self, that is to say different from what one has been for some time past, one's sensibility, being no longer dulled by habit, receives from the slightest stimulus vivid impressions which make everything that has preceded them fade into insignificance, impressions to which, because of their intensity, we attach ourselves with the momentary enthusiasm of a drunkard.

Marcel Proust

Past, Self, Different

Marcel Proust (2000). “In Search of Lost Time, Volume IV: Sodom and Gomorrah (A Modern Library E-Book)”, p.537, Modern Library