We enjoy lovely music, beautiful paintings, a thousand intellectual delicacies, but we have no idea of their cost, to those who invented them, in sleepless nights, tears, spasmodic laughter, rashes, asthmas, epilepsies, and the fear of death, which is worse than all the rest.

Marcel Proust
About This Quote

Charles Darwin is known for the quote, "We enjoy lovely music, beautiful paintings, a thousand intellectual delicacies but we have no idea of their cost, to those who invented them in sleepless nights, tears, spasmodic laughter, rashes, asthmas and epilepsies and the fear of death which is worse than all the rest." While he did not say these words exactly as written here, Darwin did say something very similar. This quote depicts Darwin's belief that life is full of pain and suffering. The pain and suffering we endure can be compared to the pain and suffering that an artist has to endure while creating a masterpiece. The artist doesn't get any pleasure from their work; they only hope to one day create something beautiful and inspiring for others to enjoy.

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More Quotes By Marcel Proust
  1. Love is a striking example of how little reality means to us.
  2. Now there is one thing I can tell you: you will enjoy certain pleasures you would not fathom now. When you still had your mother you often thought of the days when you would have her no longer. Now you will often think of days...
  3. My destination is no longer a place, rather a new way of seeing.
  4. People do not die for us immediately, but remain bathed in a sort of aura oflife which bears no relation to true immortality but through which theycontinue to occupy our thoughts in the same way as when they were alive. Itis as though they were...
  5. One says the things which one feels the need to say, and which the other will not understand: one speaks for oneself alone.
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