We are able to find everything in our memory, which is like a dispensary or chemical laboratory in which chance steers our hand sometimes to a soothing drug and sometimes to a dangerous poison.
—Marcel Proust (1871–1922) French Novelist
Gratitude is the heart’s memory.
—French Proverb
We do not remember days, we remember moments. The richness of life lies in memories we have forgotten.
—Cesare Pavese (1908–50) Italian Novelist, Poet, Critic, Translator
Memory is the receptacle and case of science: and therefore mine being so treacherous, if I know little, I cannot much complain. I know, in general, the names of the arts, and of what they treat, but nothing more. I turn over books; I do not study them. What I retain I no longerrecognise as another’s; ’tis only what my judgment has made its advantage of, the discourses and imaginations in which it has been instructed: the author, place, words, and other circumstances, I immediately forget; and I am so excellent at forgetting, that I no less forget my own writingsand compositions than the rest. I am very often quoted to myself, and am not aware of it. Whoever should inquire of me where I had the verses and examples, that I have here huddled together, would puzzle me to tell him, and yet I have not borrowed them but from famous and known authors, not contenting myself that they were rich, if I, moreover, had them not from rich and honourable hands, where there is a concurrence of authority with reason. It is no great wonder if my book run the same fortune that otherbooks do, if my memory lose what I have written as well as what I have read, and what I give, as well as what I receive.
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–92) French Essayist
Our moments of inspiration are not lost though we have no particular poem to show for them; for those experiences have left an indelible impression, and we are ever and anon reminded of them.
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–62) American Philosopher
Memory is the scribe of the soul.
—Aristotle (384BCE–322BCE) Ancient Greek Philosopher, Scholar
The camera relieves us of the burden of memory. It surveys us like God, and it surveys for us. Yet no other god has been so cynical, for the camera records in order to forget.
—John Berger (1926–2017) English Art Critic, Novelist
The joys I have possessed are ever mine; out of thy reach, behind eternity, hid in the sacred treasure of the past, but blest remembrance brings them hourly back.
—John Dryden (1631–1700) English Poet, Literary Critic, Playwright
Memory is like a purse, if it be over-full that it cannot shut, all will drop out of it. Take heed of a gluttonous curiosity to feed on many things, lest the greediness of the appetite of thy memory spoil the digestion thereof.
—Thomas Fuller (1608–61) English Cleric, Historian
It is sadder to find the past again and find it inadequate to the present than it is to have it elude you and remain forever a harmonious conception of memory.
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940) American Novelist
If you wish to forget something on the spot, make a note that this thing is to be remembered.
—Edgar Allan Poe (1809–49) American Poet
To be remembered after we are dead, is but poor recompense for being treated with contempt while we are living.
—William Hazlitt (1778–1830) English Essayist
A friend hears the song in my heart and sings it to me when my memory fails.
—Anonymous
Learning is about more than simply acquiring new knowledge and insights; it is also crucial to unlearn old knowledge that has outlive its relevance. Thus, forgetting is probably at least as important as learning.
—Gary Ryan Blair
And even if you were in some prison, the walls of which let none of the sounds of the world come to your senses – would you not then still have your childhood, that precious, kingly possession, that treasure-house of memories?
—Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926) Austrian Poet
Own only what you can carry with you; know language, know countries, know people. Let your memory be your travel bag.
—Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918–2008) Russian Dissident Novelist
A memory is what is left when something happens and does not completely unhappen.
—Edward de Bono (1933–2021) Maltese-British Psychologist, Writer
Do not forget little kindnesses and do not remember small faults.
—Chinese Proverb
The effectiveness of our memory banks is determined not by the total number of facts we take in, but the number we wish to reject.
—Jon Wynne-Tyson (1924–2020) British Publisher, Activist
Memory is a crazy woman that hoards colored rags and throws away food.
—Austin O’Malley (1858–1932) American Aphorist, Ophthalmologist
As memory may be a paradise from which we cannot be driven, it may also be a hell from which we cannot escape.
—John Lancaster Spalding (1840–1916) American Catholic Clergyman, Educator, Essayist, Biographer
Better twice remembered than once forgotten.
—German Proverb
Many a man fails to become a thinker for the sole reason that his memory is too good.
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German Philosopher, Scholar, Writer
We have all forgot more than we remember.
—Thomas Fuller (1608–61) English Cleric, Historian
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
Pleasure is the flower that fades; remembrance is the lasting perfume.
—Stanislas de Boufflers (1738–1815) French Political leader, Writer
Memory depends very much on the perspicuity, regularity, and order of our thoughts. Many complain of the want of memory, when the defect is in their judgment; and others, by grasping at all, retain nothing.
—Thomas Fuller (1608–61) English Cleric, Historian
Memory is corrupted and ruined by a crowd of memories. If I am going to have a true memory, there are a thousand things that must first be forgotten. Memory is not fully itself when it reaches only into the past. A memory that is not alive to the present does not remember the here and now, does not remember its true identity, is not memory at all. He who remembers nothing but facts and past events, and is never brought back into the present, is a victim of amnesia.
—Thomas Merton (1915–68) American Trappist Monk
The Right Honourable Gentleman is indebted to his memory for his jests, and to his imagination for his facts.
—Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751–1816) Irish-born British Playwright, Poet, Elected Rep
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