Marcel Proust Quote

We scornfully decline, because of one whom we love and who will some day be of so little account, to see another who is of no account to-day, with whom we shall be in love to-morrow, with whom we might, perhaps, had we consented to see her now, have fallen in love a little earlier and who would thus have put a term to our present sufferings, bringing others, it is true, in their place.

Pt.1. Swann's way. pt.2. Within a budding grove. pt.3. The Guermantes way (ed. 1934)