Swanns Quotes & Sayings

At such moments Gilberte's plaits used to brush my cheek. They seemed to me, in the fineness of their grain, at once natural and supernatural, and in the strength of their constructed tracery, a matchless work of art, in the composition of which had been used the very grass of Paradise. To a section of them, even infinitely minute, what celestial herbary would I not have given as a reliquary. But since I never hoped to obtain an actual fragment of those plaits, if at least I had been able to have their photograph, how far more precious than one of a sheet of flowers traced by Vinci's pencil! To acquire one of these, I stooped - with friends of the Swanns, and even with photographers - to servilities which did not procure for me what I wanted, but tied me for life to a number of extremely tiresome people. — Marcel Proust

Swann's father, an excellent but an eccentric man in whom the least little thing would, it seemed, often check the flow of his spirits and divert the current of his thoughts. Several times in the course of a year I would hear my grandfather tell at table the story, which never varied, of the behaviour of M. Swann the elder upon the death of his wife, by whose bedside he had watched day and night. My grandfather, who had not seen him for a long time, hastened to join him at the Swanns' family property on the outskirts of Combray, and managed to entice him for a moment, weeping profusely, out of the death-chamber, so that he should not be present when the body was laid in its coffin. They took a turn or two in the park, where there was a little sunshine. Suddenly M. Swann seized my grandfather — Marcel Proust

To destroy the present in the name of the future is a crime; to destroy the present in the name of the past is insanity. — Svet Di-Nahum

I believe that people would be happier sharing things and being much more of a collective rather than working from these neo-liberal ideas of just looking after yourself. I think people need each other. — Karin Dreijer Andersson

I think we're never fully protected, but I think we need to do everything we can to stop threats to us. — Rand Paul

If a man gives you a harsh winter, give him back something unexpected: The warm spring! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

Anarchy [is] necessarily consequent to inefficiency. — Thomas Jefferson

Many leaders don't listen, and it is one of the greatest methods we have of learning. You need to listen to those under your supervision and to those who are above you. — John Wooden

A general "law of least effort" applies to cognitive as well as physical
exertion. The law asserts that if there are several ways of achieving the
same goal, people will eventually gravitate to the least demanding course
of action. In the economy of action, effort is a cost, and the acquisition of
skill is driven by the balance of benefits and costs. Laziness is built deep into our nature. — Daniel Kahneman

I would never have done what I'd done if I'd considered my father as somebody I wanted to please. — Robert Mapplethorpe

I don't rehearse a lot. I try to keep it organic. Even in movies, the less I rehearse, the better I am. — Kristen Wiig

You write a book and you hope somebody will go out and pay $24.95 for what you've just said. I think books were my salvation. Books saved me from being miserable. — Amy Tan