Memory

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Here are quotations about memory and its loss:

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  • Nothing is more memorable than a smell. One scent can be unexpected, momentary and fleeting, yet conjure up a childhood summer beside a lake in the mountains; another, a moonlit beach; a third, a family dinner of pot roast and sweet potatoes during a myrtle-mad August in a Midwestern town. Smells detonate softly in our memory like poignant land mines hidden under the weedy mass of years. Hit a tripwire of smell and memories explode all at once. A complex vision leaps out of the undergrowth.
  • Reg, as he insisted on being called, had a memory that he himself had once compared to the Queen Alexandra Birdwing Butterfly in that it was colorful, flitted prettily hither and thither, and was now, alas, almost completely extinct.
  • Not the power to remember, but its very opposite, the power to forget, is a necessary condition for our existence.
  • God gave us memories that we might have roses in December.
  • Memories are like stones, time and distance erode them like acid.
  • A baby is expected. A trip is expected. News is expected. Forgetfulness is expected. An invitation is expected. Hope is expected. But memories are not expected. They just come.
  • A happy childhood can't be cured. Mine'll hang around my neck like a rainbow, that's all, instead of a noose.
  • We have all forgot more than we remember.
  • Remembrance wakes with all her busy train,
    Swells at my breast, and turns the past to pain.
  • Where'er I roam, whatever realms to see,
    My heart untravell'd fondly turns to thee;
    Still to my brother turns, with ceaseless pain,
    And drags at each remove a lengthening chain.
  • Memory is a child walking along a seashore. You never can tell what small pebble it will pick up and store away among its treasured things.
  • Memory is merely the process of tuning into vibrations that have been left behind in space and time.
  • The faintest waft is sometimes enough to induce feelings of hunger or anticipation, or to transport you back through time and space to a long-forgotten moment in your childhood. It can overwhelm you in an instant or simply tease you, creeping into your consciousness slowly and evaporating almost the moment it is detected.
  • Certainly it is one of the most blessed things about "the faith that is in Christ Jesus," that it makes a man remember his own sinfulness with penitence, not with pain — that it makes the memory of past transgressions full of solemn joy, because the memory of past transgressions but brings to mind the depth and rushing fullness of that river of love which has swept them all away as far as the east is from the west. Oh, my brother, you cannot forget your sins; but it lies within your own decision whether the remembrance shall be thankfulness and blessedness, or whether it shall be pain and loss forever.
    • Alexander Maclaren, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 408.
  • My friend, picture to yourself this — a human spirit shut up with the companionship of its forgotten and dead transgressions! There is a resurrection of acts as well as of bodies. Think what it will be for a man to sit surrounded by that ghastly company, the ghosts of his own sins! and as each forgotten fault and buried badness comes, silent and sheeted, into that awful society, and sits itself down there, think of him greeting each with the question, "Thou too? What! are ye all here? Hast tl1ou found me, O mine enemy?" and from each bloodless, spectral lip there tolls out the answer, the knell of his life," I have found thee, because thou hast sold thyself to work evil in the sight of the Lord."
    • Alexander Maclaren, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 408.
  • ... and what you are left with is a premonition of the way your life will fade behind you, like a book you have read too quickly, leaving a dwindling trail of images and emotions until all you can remember is a name.
  • A strong memory is commonly coupled with infirm judgement.
  • What thousands and millions of recollections there must be in us! And every now and then one of them becomes known to us; and it shows us what spiritual depths are growing in us, what mines of memory.
    • William Mountford, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 407.
  • Women and elephants never forget.
  • We do not remember days, we remember moments. The richness of life lies in memories we have forgotten.
  • Things are revealed through the memories we have of them. Remembering a thing means seeing it—only then—for the first time.
  • If you wish to forget anything on the spot, make a note that this thing is to be remembered.
  • The pure memories given
    To help our joy on earth, when earth is past,
    Shall help our joy in heaven.
    • Margaret Junkin Preston, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 407.
  • I have the most ill-regulated memory. It does those things which it ought not to do and leaves undone the things it ought to have done.
  • What isn't remembered never happened. Memory is merely a record. You just need to re-write that record.
  • Reminiscences make one feel so deliciously aged and sad.
  • A man's real possesion is his memory. In nothing else is he rich, in nothing else is he poor.
  • Memories are very precious to people's lives. They give us the opportunity to prove to ourselves that we exist, and if we lose them, we have an unrelenting fear of uncertainty. You must listen to me, the humans that are living here and now in the present are made of more than just memories of the past. I myself don't even know who I am; I don't have a single solitary memory about myself, but I don't believe anyone took them from me. I most likely erased them of my own free will. I was the one who made that choice, I made it for myself; so I can live in the present and the future, because I must go on believing there is a me! Angel! I know that I will never lose the you that is now a part of my memories. The you that met me and the conviction you had in what you felt you needed to do. The you that loved yourself more than anyone else ever could. I'll never forget this woman named Angel who once loved herself, yet was filled with such a doubt. You must stop denying your own existence; you have to live as a human being.
  • Can I be your memory?
  • I want to live with all of my memories, even if they're sad memories. I believe that if I stay strong, someday I'll overcome the pain, and then I'll be glad that I have those memories. I believe that there are no memories that are okay to forget.
  • When comparing human memory and computer memory it is clear that the human version has two distinct disadvantages. Firstly, as indeed I have experienced myself, due to ageing, human memory can exhibit very poor short term recall.
  • But how is Mneme dreaded by the race,
    Who scorn her warnings and despise her grace?
    By her unveil'd each horrid crime appears,
    Her awful hand a cup of wormwood bears.
    Days, years mispent, O what a hell of woe!
    Hers the worst tortures that our souls can know.
    • Phillis Wheatley, "On Recollection", Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral (1773).
  • It is notorious that the memory strengthens as you lay burdens upon it, and becomes trustworthy as you trust it.
  • Memory is the storehouse in which the substance of our knowledge is treasured up.

Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations [edit]

Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 506-09.
  • Far from our eyes th' Enchanting Objects set,
    Advantage by the friendly Distance get.
    • Alexis, A poem against Fruition, from Poems by Several Hands (Pub. 1685).
  • I do perceive that the old proverb be not alwaies trew, for I do finde that the absence of my Nathaniel doth breede in me the more continuall remembrance of him.
  • Out of sighte, out of mynde.
    • Quoted as a saying by Nathaniel Bacon. In Private Correspondence of Lady Cornwallis, p. 19. Googe. Title of Eclog.
  • Tell me the tales that to me were so dear,
    Long, long ago, long, long ago.
  • Oh, I have roamed o'er many lands,
    And many friends I've met;
    Not one fair scene or kindly smile
    Can this fond heart forget.
  • Friends depart, and memory takes them
    To her caverns, pure and deep.
  • Out of mind as soon as out of sight.
  • The mother may forget the child
    That smiles sae sweetly on her knee;
    But I'll remember thee, Glencairn,
    And all that thou hast done for me!
  • Yet how much less it were to gain,
    Though thou hast left me free,
    The loveliest things that still remain,
    Than thus remember thee.
    • Lord Byron, And Thou art Dead as Young and Fair.
  • To live in hearts we leave behind,
    Is not to die.
  • When promise and patience are wearing thin,
    When endurance is almost driven in,
    When our angels stand in a waiting hush,
    Remember the Marne and Ferdinand Foch.
  • Though sands be black and bitter black the sea,
    Night lie before me and behind me night,
    And God within far Heaven refuse to light
    The consolation of the dawn for me,—
    Between the shadowy burns of Heaven and Hell,
    It is enough love leaves my soul to dwell
    With memory.
  • Les souvenirs embellissent la vie, l'oubli seul la rend possible.
    • Remembrances embellish life but forgetfulness alone makes it possible.
    • General Enrico Cialdini, written in an album.
  • Memoria est thesaurus omnium rerum e custos.
    • Memory is the treasury and guardian of all things.
    • Cicero, De Oratore, I. 5.
  • Vita enim mortuorum in memoria vivorum est posita.
    • The life of the dead is placed in the memory of the living.
    • Cicero, Philippicæ, IX. 5.
  • Oh, how cruelly sweet are the echoes that start
    When Memory plays an old tune on the heart!
    • Eliza Cook, Journal, Volume IV. Old Dobbin, Stanza 16.
  • What peaceful hours I once enjoy'd!
    How sweet their memory still!
    But they have left an aching void
    The world can never fill.
  • Don't you remember, sweet Alice, Ben Bolt?
    Sweet Alice, whose hair was so brown;
    Who wept with delight when you gave her a smile,
    And trembl'd with fear at your frown!
  • But woe to him, who left to moan,
    Reviews the hours of brightness gone.
    • Euripides, Iphigenia in Taurus, line 1,121. Translation by Anstice.
  • 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, The Holy State and the Profane State (1642), Book III. Of Memory.
  • By every remove I only drag a greater length of chain.
  • A place in thy memory, Dearest!
    Is all that I claim:
    To pause and look back when thou hearest
    The sound of my name.
  • Fer from eze, fer from herte,
    Quoth Hendyng.
    • Hendyng, Proverbs, manuscripts (c. 1320).
  • So may it be: that so dead Yesterday,
    No sad-eyed ghost but generous and gay,
    May serve you memories like almighty wine,
    When you are old.
  • I remember, I remember,
    The house where I was born,
    The little window where the sun
    Came peeping in at morn;
    He never came a wink too soon,
    Nor brought too long a day,
    But now, I often wish the night
    Had borne my breath away!
  • Where is the heart that doth not keep,
    Within its inmost core,
    Some fond remembrance hidden deep,
    Of days that are no more?
  • And when he is out of sight, quickly also is he out of mind.
  • Badness of memory every one complains of, but nobody of the want of judgment.
  • Tho' lost to sight to mem'ry dear
    Thou ever wilt remain.
    • George Linley, Though Lost to Sight. First line found as an axiom in Monthly Magazine, Jan., 1827. Horace F. Cutler published a poem with same refrain, calling himself "Ruthven Jenkyns," crediting its publication in a fictitious magazine, Greenwich Mag. for Marines, 1707. (Hoax.) It appeared in Mrs. Mary Sherwood's novel, The Nun. Same idea in Pope—Epistle to Robert, Earl of Oxford, and Earl Mortimer. "Though lost to sight to memory dear / The absent claim a sigh, the dead a tear." Sir David Dundas offered 5 shillings during his life (1799–1877) to any one who could produce the origin of this first line. See Notes and Queries, Oct. 21, 1916, p. 336. Dem Augen fern dem Herzen ewig nah'. On a tomb in Dresden, near that of Von Weber's. See Notes and Queries, March 27, 1909, p. 249.
  • I recollect a nurse called Ann,
    Who carried me about the grass,
    And one fine day a fine young man
    Came up and kissed the pretty lass.
    She did not make the least objection.
    Thinks I, "Aha,
    When I can talk I'll tell Mama,"
    And that's my earliest recollection.
  • The heart hath its own memory, like the mind,
    And in it are enshrined
    The precious keepsakes, into which is wrought
    The giver's loving thought.
  • This memory brightens o'er the past,
    As when the sun concealed
    Behind some cloud that near us hangs,
    Shines on a distant field.
  • There comes to me out of the Past
    A voice, whose tones are sweet and wild,
    Singing a song almost divine,
    And with a tear in every line.
  • Wakes the bitter memory
    Of what he was, what is, and what must be
    Worse.
  • Il se veoid par expérience, que les mémoires excellentes se joignent volontiers aux jugements débiles.
    • Experience teaches that a good memory is generally joined to a weak judgment.
    • Michel de Montaigne, Essays, I. 9.
  • To live with them is far less sweet
    Than to remember thee!
  • Oft in the stilly night
    E'er slumber's chain has bound me,
    Fond memory brings the light
    Of other days around me.
  • When I remember all
    The friends so link'd together,
    I've seen around me fall,
    Like leaves in wintry weather
    I feel like one who treads alone
    Some banquet hall deserted,
    Whose lights are fled, whose garlands dead,
    And all but he departed.
  • And the tear that we shed, though in secret it rolls,
    Shall long keep his memory green in our souls.
  • When time who steals our years away
    Shall steal our pleasures too,
    The mem'ry of the past will stay
    And half our joys renew.
  • All to myself I think of you,
    Think of the things we used to do,
    Think of the things we used to say,
    Think of each happy bygone day.
    Sometimes I sigh, and sometimes I smile,
    But I keep each olden, golden while
    All to myself.
  • Many a man fails to become a thinker for the sole reason that his memory is too good.
  • At cum longa dies sedavit vulnera mentis,
    Intempestive qui fovet illa novat.
    • When time has assuaged the wounds of the mind, he who unseasonably reminds us of them, opens them afresh.
    • Ovid, Epistolæ Ex Ponto, IV. 11. 19.
  • Impensa monumenti supervacua est: memoria nostra durabit, si vita meruimus.
    • The erection of a monument is superfluous; the memory of us will last, if we have deserved it in our lives.
    • Pliny the Younger, Epistles, IX. 19.
  • I remember, I remember
    How my childhood fleeted by,—
    The mirth of its December,
    And the warmth of its July.
  • If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth.
    • Psalms. CXXXVII. 6.
  • Tho' lost to sight, within this filial breast
    Hendrick still lives in all his might confest.
    • W. Rider, in the London Magazine (1755), p. 589.
  • Hail, memory, hail! in thy exhaustless mine
    From age to age unnumbered treasures shine!
    Thought and her shadowy brood thy call obey,
    And Place and Time are subject to thy sway!
  • I have a room whereinto no one enters
    Save I myself alone:
    There sits a blessed memory on a throne,
    * There my life centres.
  • Though varying wishes, hopes, and fears,
    Fever'd the progress of these years,
    Yet now, days, weeks, and months but seem
    The recollection of a dream.
  • Still so gently o'er me stealing,
    Mem'ry will bring back the feeling,
    Spite of all my grief revealing
    That I love thee,—that I dearly love thee still.
    • Scribe, Opera of La Sonnambula.
  • Though yet of Hamlet, our dear brother's death,
    The memory be green.
  • Remember thee!
    Yea, from the table of my memory
    I'll wipe away all trivial fond records.
  • Die two months ago, and not forgotten yet? Then there's hope a great man's memory may outlive his life half a year.
  • I cannot but remember such things were,
    That were most precious to me.
  • If a man do not erect in this age his own tomb ere he dies, he shall live no longer in monument than the bell rings, and the widow weeps. * * * An hour in clamour and a quarter in rheum.
  • I count myself in nothing else so happy
    As in a soul rememb'ring my good friends;
    And, as my fortune ripens with thy love,
    It shall be still thy true love's recompense.
  • Looking on the lines
    Of my boy's face, my thoughts I did recoil
    Twenty-three years; and saw myself unbreech'd,
    In my green velvet coat, my dagger muzzled,
    Lest it should bite its master, and so prove,
    As ornaments oft do, too dangerous.
  • Thou comest as the memory of a dream,
    Which now is sad because it hath been sweet.
  • Heu quanta minus est cum reliquis versari quam tui meminisse.
    • Ah, how much less all living loves to me,
      Than that one rapture of remembering thee.
    • The Latin is Shenstone's Epitaph to the memory of his cousin Mary Dolman, on an ornamental Urn. The translation. is by Arthur J. Munby.
  • The Right Honorable gentleman is indebted to his memory for his jests and to his imagination for his facts.
    • Richard Brinsley Sheridan, attributed to him in report of a Speech in Reply to Mr. Dundas. Not found in his works but the idea exists in loose sketches for a comedy.
  • Nobis meminisse relictum.
    • Left behind as a memory for us.
    • Statius, Silvæ, Book II. 1. 55.
  • In vain does Memory renew
    The hours once tinged in transport's dye:
    The sad reverse soon starts to view
    And turns the past to agony.
  • Facetiarum apud præpotentes in longum memoria est.
    • The powerful hold in deep remembrance an ill-timed pleasantry.
    • Tacitus, Annales, V. 2.
  • The sweet remembrance of the just
    Shall flourish when he sleeps in dust.
  • A land of promise, a land of memory,
    A land of promise flowing with the milk
    And honey of delicious memories!
  • Faciam, hujus loci, dieique, meique semper memineris.
    • I will make you always remember this place, this day, and me.
    • Terence, Eunuchus, V. 7. 31.
  • Memory, in widow's weeds, with naked feet stands on a tombstone.
  • Forsan et hæc olim meminisse juvabit.
    • Perhaps the remembrance of these things will prove a source of future pleasure.
    • Virgil, Æneid (29-19 BC), I. 203.
  • Quique sui memores alios fecere merendo.
    • These who have ensured their remembrance by their deserts.
    • Virgil, Æneid (29-19 BC), VI. 664.
  • As the dew to the blossom, the bud to the bee,
    As the scent to the rose, are those memories to me.
  • Out of the cradle endlessly rocking,
    Out of the mocking bird's throat, the musical shuttle,
    * * * * * *
    A reminiscence sing.
  • Ah! memories of sweet summer eves,
    Of moonlit wave and willowy way,
    Of stars and flowers, and dewy leaves,
    And smiles and tones more dear than they!
  • And when the stream
    Which overflowed the soul was passed away,
    A consciousness remained that it had left,
    Deposited upon the silent shore
    Of memory, images and precious thoughts,
    That shall not die, and cannot be destroyed.
  • The vapours linger round the Heights,
    They melt, and soon must vanish;
    One hour is theirs, nor more is mine,—
    Sad thought, which I would banish,
    But that I know, where'er I go,
    Thy genuine image, Yarrow!
    Will dwell with me,—to heighten joy,
    And cheer my mind in sorrow.

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