Quotes About Forgetting

The English poet Wordsworth put it so beautifully: Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting: The Soul that rises with us, our Life's Star Hath had elsewhere its setting, And cometh from afar: Not in entire forgetfulness. And not in utter nakedness, But trailing clouds of glory do we come From God, who is our home: Heaven lies about us in our infancy! Shades of the prison-house begin to close upon the growing boy, But he beholds the light, and whence it flows, He sees it in his joy.

I keep forgetting about your amnesia. Heh. Forgetting about amnesia. That's funny.

Everyone she worked alongside in France had been insatiable letter-writers and resolute diary-keepers, but Gwendolen had felt no urge to chronicle, no desire for an aide-mémoire. Life was for absorbing, not recording. And in the end, it was all just paper that someone would have to dispose of after you were gone. Perhaps, after all, one's purpose in this world was to be forgotten, not remembered.

Forgetting takes space./Forgotten matters displace/as much anything else as/anything else. We must/skirt unlabeled crates/as thought it made sense/and take them when we go/to other states.

The stranger thought it might be God himself had forgotten much from our pasts, events far distant, events of the same day. And if a thing is not in God's mind, then what chance of it remaining in those of mortal men?

The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa

In other words, this world is not a sin; forgetting that "this world" is the radiance and Goodness of Spirit—there is the sin.

In forgetting, they were trying to remember.

The blaze of sun wrung pops of sweat from the old man's brow, yet he cupped his hands around the glass of hot sweet tea as if to warm them. In forgetting, they were trying to remember.

While memory holds a seatIn this distracted globe. Remember thee!Yea, from the table of my memoryI'll wipe away all trivial fond records.

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:The soul that rises with us, our life's star,Hath had elsewhere its setting,And cometh from afar:Not in entire forgetfulness,And not in utter nakedness,But trailing clouds of glory do we comeFrom God, who is our home:Heaven lies about us in our infancy!Shades of the prison-house begin to closeUpon the growing boy.

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting. The soul that rises with us, our life's star, hath had elsewhere its setting, and comet from afar: not in entire forgetfulness, and not in utter nakedness, but trailing clouds of glory do we come from God, who is our home.

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting...

COMPARE) - Our birth is but a dream and a forgetting (Wordsworth) - ...so schläft er sehr rasch wieder ein, und schon nach vierundzwanzig Stunden ist es, als sei man niet weg gewesen und als sei die Reise der Traum einer Nacht. (Thomas Mann) - Thetis baptized her mortal son in Styx; A mortal mother would on Lethe fix. (Byron)

People—and I'm no exception—seem capable of forgetting almost anything, much as if our island were unable to float in anything but an expanse of totally empty sea.

Writing an autobiography means guessing or making up everything you've forgotten. I thought I'd already sufficiently described the character Ivan. In reality, I could no longer even remember him. Or rather: I was starting to remember him all too clearly, which could only mean this Ivan was now nothing more than my creation.

Perhaps we become accustomed to our grief and, as it becomes increasingly familiar, increasingly part of the emotional landscape, it becomes a dullness. But there is no closure, no forgetting. One mourns those one has loved who have died until one joins them. It happens soon enough.

There's a tug-of-war in his heart already, between wanting to remember and needing to forget.

I think I would remember forgetting that.

That which dies shall still know life in death for all that decays is not forgotten and reanimated shall walk the world in a bliss of not-knowing Ã¢â'¬Â¦

Forgetfulness was for him the death not only of knowledge but also of imagination.

Mercifullym my dear Edna, said Peg, I do not remember anything I have ever said in my entire life.

I suppose familiarity erodes even the most awful memories

For years she had been able to be happy only by forgetting happiness.