“It is through living that we discover ourselves, at the same time as we discover the world around us.”

On ne reçoit pas la sagesse, il faut la découvrir soi-même après un trajet que personne ne peut faire pour nous, ne peut nous épargner.
Source: In Search of Lost Time, Remembrance of Things Past (1913-1927), Vol II: Within a Budding Grove (1919), Ch. IV: "Seascape, with a Frieze of Girls"

Joyzelle, Act i, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Variant: People are generally better persuaded by the reasons which they have themselves discovered than by those which have come into the mind of others.
Source: Pensees

Source: Dawn Saves the Planet

1960s, Freedom From The Known (1969)
Context: For centuries we have been spoon-fed by our teachers, by our authorities, by our books, our saints. We say, "Tell me all about it — what lies beyond the hills and the mountains and the earth?" and we are satisfied with their descriptions, which means that we live on words and our life is shallow and empty. We are secondhand people. We have lived on what we have been told, either guided by our inclinations, our tendencies, or compelled to accept by circumstances and environment. We are the result of all kinds of influences and there is nothing new in us, nothing that we have discovered for ourselves; nothing original, pristine, clear.

Notes from My Travels: Visits with Refugees in Africa, Cambodia, Pakistan and Ecuador (2006)
2006

Source: Empty Cages (2004), Ch. 6