“Even in the most insignificant details of our daily life, none of us can be said to constitute a material whole, which is identical for everyone, and need only be turned up like a page in an account-book or the record of a will; our social personality is created by the thoughts of other people.”

Même au point de vue des plus insignifiantes choses de la vie, nous ne sommes pas un tout matériellement constitué, identique pour tout le monde et dont chacun n'a qu'à aller prendre connaissance comme d'un cahier des charges ou d'un testament; notre personnalité sociale est une création de la pensée des autres.
"Overture"
In Search of Lost Time, Remembrance of Things Past (1913-1927), Vol I: Swann's Way (1913)

Original

Même au point de vue des plus insignifiantes choses de la vie, nous ne sommes pas un tout matériellement constitué, identique pour tout le monde et dont chacun n'a qu'à aller prendre connaissance comme d'un cahier des charges ou d'un testament; notre personnalité sociale est une création de la pensée des autres.

In Search of Lost Time, Remembrance of Things Past (1913-1927), Vol I: Swann's Way (1913)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Sept. 29, 2023. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Even in the most insignificant details of our daily life, none of us can be said to constitute a material whole, which …" by Marcel Proust?
Marcel Proust photo
Marcel Proust 41
French novelist, critic, and essayist 1871–1922

Related quotes

Emma Thompson photo
George Sand photo

“We cannot tear a single page from our life, but we can throw the whole book into the fire.”

Nous ne pouvons arracher une seule page de notre vie, mais nous pouvons jeter le livre au feu.
Source: Mauprat, ch. 11 (1837); Matilda M. Hays (trans.) Mauprat (London: E. Churton, 1847) p. 121

Erving Goffman photo
Thich Nhat Hanh photo

“If in our daily life we can smile, if we can be peaceful and happy, not only we, but everyone will profit from it.”

Thich Nhat Hanh (1926) Religious leader and peace activist

Peace Is Every Step : The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life (1992) Bantam reissue
Source: Being Peace
Context: If in our daily life we can smile, if we can be peaceful and happy, not only we, but everyone will profit from it. If we really know how to live, what better way to start the day than with a smile? Our smile affirms our awareness and determination to live in peace and joy. The source of a true smile is an awakened mind.

Teal Swan photo

“It would surely be better … to give up not only a part, but, if necessary, even the whole, of our constitution, to preserve the remainder!”

Boyle Roche (1736–1807) Irish politician

Arguing for the habeas corpus suspension bill in Ireland.
[Barrington, Jonah, Personal sketches and recollections of his own times, Chapter XVII https://archive.org/details/personalsketche06barrgoog]
[Falkiner, C. Litton, Studies in Irish History and Biography, mainly of the Eighteenth Century, 1902, Longmans, Green, and Co., New York, Sir Boyle Roche, p.237]

Annie Besant photo

“Thought is just not something objective in our heads. Thought is power – real, objective power. Moreover, the thoughts we create have a life of their own. They have a kind of material reality that affects other people for good or ill – hence our responsibility to chose.”

Annie Besant (1847–1933) British socialist, theosophist, women's rights activist, writer and orator

The Power of Thought: A Twenty-First Century Adaptation of Annie Besant's http://books.google.co.in/books?id=SVKqq0dTdSMC&printsec=frontcover, p. backcover

Tanith Lee photo
Matsushita Konosuke photo

“Our social mission as a manufacturer is only realized when products reach, are used by, and satisfy the customer… We need to take the customer's skin temperature daily.”

Matsushita Konosuke (1894–1989) Japanese businessman

Kōnosuke Matsushita in: Nihon Seisansei Honbu (1984), Strategies for productivity: international perspectives, p. 124

Related topics