We imagine always when we speak that it is our own ears, our own mind, that are listening. The truth which one puts into one's words does not carve o… - Marcel Proust

We imagine always when we speak that it is our own ears, our own mind, that are listening.

Our virtues themselves are not free and floating qualities over which we retain a permanent control and power of disposal; they come to be so closely linked in our minds with the actions in conjunction with which we make it our duty to practice them, that, if we are suddenly called upon to perform some action of a different order, it takes us by surprise, and without our supposing for a moment that it might involve the bringing of those very same virtues into play.

Thanks to art, instead of seeing one world only, our own, we see that world multiply itself and we have at our disposal as many worlds as there are original artists, worlds more different one from the other than those which revolve in infinite space, worlds which, centuries after the extinction of the fire from which their light first emanated, whether it is called Rembrandt or Vermeer, send us still each one its special radiance.

Translation: Everything great in the world comes from neurotics. They alone have founded our religions and composed our masterpieces.