Quotes About Memory

History, memory - that is what makes us human, that, and our knowledge of death: 'by man came death'. For knowledge of death makes us wish to extend our lives at the expense of others. And this is the root of the struggle for power.

History, memory – that is what makes us human, that, and our knowledge of death: 'by man came death.' For knowledge of death makes us wish to extend our lives at the expense of others. And this is the root of the struggle for power.

Losing a parent is something like driving through a plate-glass window. You didn't know it was there until it shattered, and then for years to come you're picking up the pieces.

I erased the thought from my mind, but I couldn't undo the fact that I'd had the thought in the first place.

I should have written that down. - Dilbert

Clinical psychologists have proven that ordinary people will alter their memories of the past to make them fit their perceptions. It is the way all normal brains function under ordinary circumstances.

the past exists only in your mind," he said. "Likewise, the future exists only in your mind because it has not happened.

The elderly are spooky when they degenerate into reflections of their younger selves. They say things that make sense on some grammatical level, but it's not always connected to reality.

This song came on that sounded unlike anything I had ever heard: an aggressive drum machine pattern, unusual-sounding electronic noises, and of course, on top of it all, that voice. It struck me immediately, so warm and beautiful: The song was "Running Up that Hill (A Deal with God)." It was like a soundtrack to the evening. 

That was us.' I told him we were the kids who'd caused the Burneys' deaths.

Us, on the other hand, they can't kill. But we have to live with the memory of what they do. And really, it's what they do to us that's worse.

Then on your tombstone, where you only get a little bit of space to sum up your life, some wax-faced creep chisels a set of meaningless numbers instead of poetry or a secret love or the name of your favorite candy. In the end, all you get is a few words.

That is one of the tragedies of aging, appreciating how many good and interesting people have passed by unknown.

Fuzzy Tally is no more.

This beauty would remain whether he was here to see it or not.

there would be far less suffering amongst mankind, if men — and God knows why they are so fashioned — did not employ their imaginations so assiduously in recalling the memory of past sorrow, instead of bearing their present lot with equanimity.

The first impression is readily received. We are so constituted that we believe the most incredible things; and, once they are engraved upon the memory, woe to him who would endeavor to efface them.

Half the night I was on my knees before those flowers, and I regarded them as the pledges of your love; but those impressions grew fainter, and were at length effaced.

Thoughts come back; beliefs persist; facts pass by never to return.

THALES. Maybe so. Still, I'll defend a life Lived worthily in its brief time on earth. PROTEUS. A life like yours, yes—it persists Well past the bounds of mortal days. Among the crowd of pale and drifting ghosts 8620 I've noticed you these many centuries.

Few people are capable of concerning themselves with the most recent past. Either the present holds us violently captive, or we lose ourselves in the distant past and strive with might and main to recall and restore what is irrevocably lost.

Pensar!—exclamé. ¿Qué necesidad tenéis de recordármelo, puesto que, piense o no piense, siempre estáis presente en mi alma?

That treasure's been handled often, you forget, And the gilding's mostly rubbed away.

Memory extends as far as our self-interest.