Quotes About Memory

Life is possible only by the deficiencies of our imagination and memory.

There was a time when time did not yet exist. … The rejection of birth is nothing but the nostalgia for this time before time.

Memories vanish when we want to remember, but fix themselves permanently in the mind when we want to forget.

Oamenii la care ne gîndim dintr-o dat?, f?r? motiv aparent, sînt cei care ne-au flatat ori ne-au umilit într-un moment sau altul al existenÅ£ei noastre. Sînt singurii de care ne amintim dup? ani, chiar ÅŸi atunci cînd au disp?rut de tot din orizontul nostru.

Without the faculty of forgetting, our past would weigh so heavily on our present that we should not have the strength to confront another moment, still less to live through it. Life would be bearable only to frivolous natures, those in fact who do not remember.

No one reads to know, but to forget

Cu cât înaintezi în via??, îÅ£i dai seama c? nimic nu înveÅ£i, ci regresezi în amintire. Este ca ÅŸi cum am imita o lume pe care am tr?it-o cândva.

Each time I have a lapse of memory, I think of the anguish which must afflict those who know they no longer remember anything. But something tells me that after a certain time a secret joy possesses them, a joy they would not agree to trade for any of their memories, even the most stirring. …

În tristete, totul are doua fete. Nu poti fi nici în iad si nici în rai, nici în viata si nici în moarte, nici fericit si nici nefericit. Un plîns fara lacrimi, un echivoc fara sfîrsit. Caci nu te izgoneste ea în aceeasi masura din aceasta lume, ca si din cealalta? Esti trist de totdeauna, nu de acum. Si acest totdeauna e toata lumea înainte de nasterea ta. Nu-i tristetea amintirea vremii în care n-am fost?

Everyone has had, at a given moment, an extraordinary experience which will be for him, because of the memory of it he preserves, the crucial obstacle to his inner metamorphosis.

Muzica este o arheologie a memoriei.

Anularea prezentului în n?p?direa amintirilor împrumut? vieÈ›ii un caracter de irealitate È™i de vis inutil.

Nostalgia, more than anything, gives us the shudder of our own imperfection.

Am primit azi scrisoarea cu fotografia tatii. In cea mic?, l-am g?sit aproape neschimbat, doar puÅ£in îmb?trînit; în cealalt?, luat? în catedral?, l-am reg?sit cu greu, c?ci tr?s?turile exprim? senin?tatea teribil? a veÅŸniciei. M? gîndesc cît de cumplite trebuie s? fie zilele f?r? el.

Every thought should recall the ruin of a smile.

Numai uitând tot ne putem aminti cu adev?rat. Sl?birea memoriei ne descoper? toat? lumea care a precedat timpul

Mama a fost o fiin?? admirabil?. Asta pentru noi e o consolare. Scrie-mi cît ai cheltuit cu înmormîntarea. Natural, voi contribui ÅŸi eu. C?ci viaÅ£a p?mînteanului este umbr? ÅŸi vis. Mi-aduc aminte de cuvintele astea pline de înÅ£elepciune care se rostesc, cred, la parastas. Ele spun totul.

Life is possible only by the deficiencies of our imagination and our memory.

If I reflect on any moment of my life, the most feverish or the most neutral, what remains? — and what difference is there now between them? Everything having become the same, without relief and without reality, it is when I felt nothing that I was closest to the truth, I mean to my present state in which I am recapitulating my experiences. What is the use of having felt anything at all? There is no "ecstasy" which either memory or imagination can resuscitate!

Deep in his heart, man aspires to rejoin the condition he had before consciousness. History is merely the detour he takes to get there.

Since we remember clearly only our ordeals, it is ultimately the sick, the persecuted, the victims in every realm who will have lived to the best advantage. The others - the lucky ones - have a life, of course, but not the memory of life.

If, as we grow older, we scrutinize our own past at the expense of 'problems', it is simply because we handle memories more readily than ideas.

I remember a place I have been only if I have had the luck to experience utter misery there.

To be "happy" you must constantly bear in mind the miseries you have escaped. This would be a way for memory to redeem itself, since ordinarily it preserves only disasters, eager — and with what success! — to sabotage happiness.