To look backward for a while is to refresh the eye, to restore it, and to render it the more fit for its prime function of looking forward.
—Margaret Barber (b.1869) English Christian Author
Memories may escape the action of the will, may sleep a long time, but when stirred by the right influence, though that influence be light as a shadow, they flash into full stature and life with everything in place.
—John Muir (1838–1914) Scottish-born American Naturalist
How confusing the beams from memory’s lamp are;
One day a bachelor, the next a grampa.
What is the secret of the trick?
How did I get so old so quick?
—Ogden Nash (1902–71) American Writer of Sophisticated Light Verse
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
Every man’s memory is his private literature.
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) English Humanist, Pacifist, Essayist, Short Story Writer, Satirist
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
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
A retentive memory may be a good thing, but the ability to forget is the true token of greatness.
—Elbert Hubbard (1856–1915) American Writer, Publisher, Artist, Philosopher
Our greatest glory consists not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.
—Oliver Goldsmith (1730–74) Irish Novelist, Playwright, Poet
A diplomat is a man who always remembers a woman’s birthday but never remembers her age.
—Robert Frost (1874–1963) American Poet
Things that were hard to bear are sweet to remember.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca) (c.4 BCE–65 CE) Roman Stoic Philosopher, Statesman, Tragedian
I cannot walk through the suburbs in the solitude of the night without thinking that the night pleases us because it suppresses idle details, just as our memory does.
—Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) Argentine Writer, Essayist, Poet
I always have trouble remembering three things: faces, names, and — I can’t remember what the third thing is.
—Fred Allen (1894–1956) American Humorist, Radio Personality
Everybody needs his memories. They keep the wolf of insignificance from the door.
—Saul Bellow (1915–2005) Canadian-American Novelist
The heart’s memory eliminates the bad and magnifies the good; and thanks to this artifice we manage to endure the burdens of the past.
—Gabriel Garcia Marquez (1927–2014) Colombian Novelist, Short-Story Writer
What beastly incidents our memories insist on cherishing, the ugly, and the disgusting; the beautiful things we have to keep diaries to remember.
—Eugene O’Neill (1888–1953) American Playwright
I should allow only my heart to have imagination; and for the rest rely on memory, that long drawn sunset of one’s personal truth.
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977) Russian-born American Novelist
Memory is not wisdom; idiots can by rote repeat volumes.—Yet what is wisdom without memory?
—Martin Farquhar Tupper (1810–89) English Poet, Writer
Perhaps even these things, one day, will be pleasing to remember.
—Virgil (70–19 BCE) Roman Poet
Memory is often the attribute of stupidity; it generally belongs to heavy spirits whom it makes even heavier by the baggage it loads on them.
—Francois-Rene de Chateaubriand (1768–1848) French Writer, Academician, Statesman
The past is never dead, it is not even past.
—William Faulkner (1897–1962) American Novelist
Happiness is good health and a bad memory.
—Ingrid Bergman (1915–82) Swedish Actor
There is no greater sorrow than to recall a happy time in the midst of wretchedness.
—Dante Alighieri (1265–1321) Italian Poet, Philosopher
God gave us memory that we might have roses in December.
—J. M. Barrie (1860–1937) Scottish Novelist, Dramatist
Isn’t it fortunate how selective our recollections usually are.
—Malcolm S. Forbes (1919–1990) American Publisher, Businessperson
Memory is a complicated thing, a relative to truth, but not its twin.
—Barbara Kingsolver (b.1955) American Novelist, Essayist, Poet
Back on its golden hinges
The gate of Memory swings,
And my heart goes into the garden
And walks with the olden things.
—Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850–1919) American Poet, Journalist
Memory, the daughter of attention, is the teeming mother of knowledge.
—Martin Farquhar Tupper (1810–89) English Poet, Writer
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 greatest of artists, and effaces from your mind what is unnecessary.
—Maurice Baring (1874–1946) English Author, Journalist
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
A good storyteller is a person who has a good memory and hopes other people haven’t.
—Irvin S. Cobb (1876–1944) American Humorist, Short Story Writer, Columnist
Our memories are independent of our wills. It is not easy to forget.
—Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751–1816) Irish-born British Playwright, Poet, Elected Rep
A childhood is what anyone wants to remember of it. It leaves behind no fossils, except perhaps in fiction.
—Carol Shields (1935–2003) American-born Canadian Novelist, Short Story Writer
Memory is a crazy woman that hoards colored rags and throws away food.
—Austin O’Malley (1858–1932) American Aphorist, Ophthalmologist
A good memory is one trained to forget the trivial.
—Clifton Fadiman (1904–99) American Author, Radio Personality
How strange are the tricks of memory, which, often hazy as a dream about the most important events of a man’s life, religiously preserve the merest trifles.
—Richard Burton (1925–84) Welsh Actor
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
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
As with most fine things, chocolate has its season. There is a simple memory aid that you can use to determine whether it is the correct time to order chocolate dishes: any month whose name contains the letter A, E, or U is the proper time for chocolate.
—Sandra Boynton (b.1953) American Humorist
The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting.
—Milan Kundera (b.1929) Czech Novelist
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
If you want to keep your memories, you first have to live them.
—Bob Dylan (b.1941) American Singer-songwriter
A man’s memory may almost become the art of continually varying and misrepresenting his past, according to his interest in the present.
—George Santayana (1863–1952) Spanish-American Poet, Philosopher
Memories, imagination, old sentiments, and associations are more readily reached through the sense of smell than through any other channel.
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809–94) American Physician, Essayist
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
A good man doubles the length of his existence; to have lived so as to look back with pleasure on our past life is to live twice.
—Martial (40–104) Ancient Roman Latin Poet
The difference between false memories and true ones is the same as for jewels: it is always the false ones that look the most real, the most brilliant.
—Salvador Dali (1904–89) Spanish Painter
That memory is the book of judgment, from some opium experiences of mine, I can believe. I have, indeed, seen the same thing asserted in modern books, and accompanied by a remark which I am convinced is true, namely: that the dread book of account, which the Scriptures speak of is, in fact, the mind itself of each individual. Of this, at least, I feel assured — that there is no such thing as forgetting, possible to the mind; a thousand accidents may and will interpose a veil between our present consciousness and the secret inscriptions on the mind; accidents of the same sort will also rend away this veil; but whether veiled or unveiled, the inscription remains forever; just as the stars seem to withdraw before the common light of day; whereas, in fact, we all know that it is the light which is drawn over them as a veil, and that they are waiting to be revealed, when the obscuring daylight shall have withdrawn.
—Thomas de Quincey (1785–1859) English Essayist, Critic
I think it is all a matter of love: the more you love a memory, the stronger and stranger it is.
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977) Russian-born American Novelist
Pleasure is the flower that fades; remembrance is the lasting perfume.
—Stanislas de Boufflers (1738–1815) French Political leader, Writer
The secret of a good memory is attention, and attention to a subject depends upon our interest in it. We rarely forget that which has made a deep impression on our minds.
—Tryon Edwards American Theologian
Memory has the singular characteristic of recalling in a friend absent, as in a journey long past, only that which is agreeable.
—Charles Dudley Warner (1829–1900) American Essayist, Novelist
It was one of those perfect English autumnal days which occur more frequently in memory than in life.
—P. D. James (b.1920) British Novelist
Remembrance and reflection how allied. What thin partitions divides sense from thought.
—Alexander Pope (1688–1744) English Poet
Finish every day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be cumbered with your old nonsense. This day is all that is good and fair. It is too dear, with its hopes and invitations, to waste a moment on yesterdays.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
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
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
When eating bamboo sprouts, remember the man who planted them.
—Chinese Proverb
Memory seldom fails when its office is to show us the tombs of our buried hopes.
—Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of Blessington (1789–1849) Irish Novelist, Writer
A shared vision is not an idea. It is not even an important idea such as freedom. It is, rather, a force in people’s hearts, a force of impressive power… Shared vision is vital for the learning organization because it provides the focus and energy for learning.
—Peter Senge (b.1947) American Management Consultant, Author, Scientist
It’s surprising how much memory is built around things unnoticed at the time.
—Barbara Kingsolver (b.1955) American Novelist, Essayist, Poet
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
It is said that God gave us memory so we could have roses in winter. But it is also true that without memory we could not have self in any season. The more memories you have, the more you have. That is why, as Swift said, “No wise man ever wished to be younger.”
—George Will (b.1941) American Columnist, Journalist, Writer