Cynical Cynosure?

The frequency of virtues common to all is not more to be wondered at than the multiplicity of vices peculiar to each.
— Marcel Proust, Le Temps retrouvé, #30, Vol. 2, p. 193, in The Maxims of Marcel Proust, Justin O'Brien (ed. and tr.), p. 132.

Not only do we fail to grasp at once really rare works of art, but even within each of those works we first notice the least valuable parts. Unlike life, those great masterpieces do not disappoint us by giving us their best first.
— Marcel Proust, Ibid., #30, Vol. I, p. 143, in Ibid., p. 351.

The time at our disposal every day is elastic: the passions we experience stretch it; those we awaken in others shrink it; and habit fills it.
— Marcel Proust, Ibid., #30, Vol. II, p. 19, in Ibid., p. 397.

We passionately want there to be another life in which we would be the same as we are here on earth. But we do not stop to think that after a few years we are unfaithful, right in this life, to what we were and wanted to remain throughout eternity. We dream much of paradise or rather of many paradises in succession, but long before we die they are all lost paradises in which we would feel lost.
— Marcel Proust, Ibid., #15, Vol. II, pp. 95-96, in Ibid., p. 408.

In the end, such a civilization can produce only a mass man: .... The handsomest encomium for such creatures is: "They do not make trouble." Their highest virtue is: "They do not stick their necks out." Ultimately, such a society produces only two groups of men: the conditioners and the conditioned; the active and the passive barbarians. The exposure of this web of falsehood, self-deception, and emptiness is perhaps what made Death of a Salesman so poignant to the metropolitan American audiences that witnessed it.
— Lewis Mumford, The Conduct of Life, p. 16.

....But it is in such moments that life seems irradiated in every direction: moments detached from all preparatory activity or further result, moments so intensely good in themselves, so complete, so all-satisfying that neither further emergence nor transcendence seem needed, since they are present in the experience itself. These are the moments when art seems poignantly to encompass all of life's possibilities, or, by the same token, when life reveals the significance of art.
     Without such consummations, without such precious moments, man would be but the traditional donkey, flayed by a stick behind, lured by a deceptive carrot in front of him. To be alert to seize such moments of high insight, unconditioned action, and perfect fulfillment is one of the main lessons of life: endless activity, without this detachment and contemplation and ultimate delight, cannot bring life's fullest satisfaction. What man creates in art and thought justifies itself, not only by contributing to life's development and the emergence of new values, but by the production of significant moments. Those who have encountered these moments, who have held them close, can never be altogether cheated or frustrated, even by life's worst misfortunes or by its untimely curtailment. An education or a general mode of life that does not lead — though by indirection — to such moments and heighten their savor, falls short of man's needs.
— Lewis Mumford, Ibid., pp.169-170.