Memory is a net; one finds it full of fish when he takes it from the brook; but a dozen miles of water have run through it without sticking.
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809–94) American Physician, Essayist
Memory itself is an internal rumour.
—George Santayana (1863–1952) Spanish-American Poet, Philosopher
When one is in trouble, one remembers God.
—African Proverb
Human memory is a marvelous but fallacious instrument. The memories which lie within us are not carved in stone; not only do they tend to become erased as the years go by, but often they change, or even increase by incorporating extraneous features.
—Primo Levi (1919–87) Italian Novelist, Poet, Chemist
I always have trouble remembering three things: faces, names, and—I can’t remember what the third thing is.
—Fred Allen (1894–1956) American Comedian, Radio Personality
How can such deep-imprinted images sleep in us at times, till a word, a sound, awake them?
—Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729–81) German Writer, Philosopher
Everybody needs his memories. They keep the wolf of insignificance from the door.
—Saul Bellow (1915–2005) Canadian-American Novelist
The best memory is that which forgets nothing, but injuries. Write kindness in marble and write injuries in the dust.
—Persian Proverb
Better twice remembered than once forgotten.
—German Proverb
What we remember from childhood we remember forever—permanent ghosts, stamped, inked, imprinted, eternally seen.
—Cynthia Ozick (b.1928) American Novelist, Short-story Writer, Essayist
The young have aspirations that never come to pass, the old have reminiscences of what never happened. It’s only the middle-aged who are really conscious of their limitations—that is why one should be so patient with them.
—Saki (Hector Hugh Munro) (1870–1916) British Short Story Writer, Satirist, Historian
Memory is a magnet. It will pull to it and hold only material nature has designed it to attract.
—Jessamyn West
Of what significance are the things you can forget.
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–62) American Philosopher
We are made wise not by the recollection of our past, but by the responsibility for our future.
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish Playwright
A friend hears the song in my heart and sings it to me when my memory fails.
—Anonymous
It’s surprising how much memory is built around things unnoticed at the time.
—Barbara Kingsolver (b.1955) American Novelist, Essayist, Poet
The memory has as many moods as the temper, and shifts its scenery like a diorama.
—George Eliot (Mary Anne Evans) (1819–80) English Novelist
Your memory is a monster; you forget – it doesn’t. It simply files things away. It keeps things for you, or hides things from you – and summons them to your recall with a will of its own. You think you have a memory; but it has you!
—John Irving (b.1942) American Modern Novelist
But each day brings its petty dust our soon-choked souls to fill, and we forget because we must, and not because we will.
—Matthew Arnold (1822–88) English Poet, Critic
A great memory is never made synonymous with wisdom, any more than a dictionary would be called a treatise.
—John Henry Newman (1801–90) British Theologian, Poet
Like ultraviolet rays memory shows to each man in the book of life a script that invisibly and prophetically glosses the text.
—Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) German Literary and Marxist Critic
We have all forgot more than we remember.
—Thomas Fuller (1608–61) English Cleric, Historian
The two offices of memory are collection and distribution.
—Samuel Johnson (1709–84) British Essayist
I’m always fascinated by the way memory diffuses fact.
—Diane Sawyer (b.1945) American Television News Journalist
When you are right no one remembers; when you are wrong no one forgets.
—Irish Proverb
The charm, one might say the genius, of memory is that it is choosy, chancy and temperamental; it rejects the edifying cathedral and indelibly photographs the small boy outside, chewing a hunk of melon in the dust.
—Elizabeth Bowen (1899–1973) Irish Novelist, Short-story Writer
Memory is the mother of all wisdom.
—Aeschylus (525–456 BCE) Greek Playwright
One of the keys to happiness is a bad memory.
—Rita Mae Brown (b.1944) American Writer, Feminist
The man with a clear conscience probably has a poor memory.
—Unknown
There are lots of people who mistake their imagination for their memory.
—Josh Billings (Henry Wheeler Shaw) (1818–85) American Humorist, Author, Lecturer
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