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

It is grief that develops the powers of the mind.

The person with whom we are in love is to be recognised only by the intensity of the pain that we suffer.

The bonds that unite us to another human being are sanctified when he or she adopts the same point of view as ourselves in judging one of our imperfections.

To understand a profound thought is to have, at the moment one understands it, a profound thought oneself; and this demands some effort, a genuine descent to the heart of oneself . . . Only desire and love give us the strength to make this effort. The only books that we truly absorb are those we read with real appetite, after having worked hard to get them, so great had been our need of them.