Motivational Quotes

Memory

Why is our memory good enough to recall to the last detail things that have happened to us, yet not good enough to recall how often we have told them to the same person.

- La Rochefoucauld, Francois De

Best Quotes about Memory

We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget.

Didion, Joan

The memory should be specially taxed in youth, since it is then that it is strongest and most tenacious. But in choosing the things that should be committed to memory the utmost care and forethought must be exercised; as lessons well learnt in youth are never forgotten.

Arthur Schopenhauer

Memory is the diary that we all carry about with us.

Wilde, Oscar

That translucent alabaster of our memories.

Proust, Marcel

The best memory is that which forgets nothing, but injuries. Write kindness in marble and write injuries in the dust.

Proverb, Persian

When to the sessions of sweet silent thought I summon up remembrance of things past, I sigh the lack of many things I sought, And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste.

William Shakespeare

The palest ink lasts longer than the most retentive memory.

Proverb, Chinese

A retentive memory may be a good thing, but the ability to forget is the true token of greatness.

Hubbard, Elbert

One must have a good memory to be able to keep the promises one makes.

Friedrich Nietzsche

10.

The selective memory isn't selective enough.

Morrison, Blake

11.

We have all forgot more than we remember.

Fuller, Thomas

12.

When to the sessions of sweet silent thought I summon up remembrance of things past, I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste. Then can I drown an eye (unused to flow) For precious friends hid in death's dateless night, and weep afresh love's long since cancelled woe,and moan the expense of many a vanished sight. Then can I grieve at grievances foregone, and heavily from woe to woe tell over the sad account of fore-bemoaned moan, Which I new pay as if not paid before. But if the while I think on thee, dear friend, all losses are restored and sorrows end.

Shakespeare, William

13.

In endowing us with memory, nature has revealed to us a truth utterly unimaginable to the unreflective creation, the truth of immortality. The most ideal human passion is love, which is also the most absolute and animal and one of the most ephemeral.

Santayana, George

14.

When I was younger, I could remember anything, whether it had happened or not.

Mark Twain

15.

But each day brings its petty dust our soon-choked souls to fill, and we forget because we must, and not because we will.

Arnold, Matthew

16.

Take only memories, leave nothing but footprints.

Seattle, Chief

17.

Memory is not an instrument for exploring the past but its theatre. It is the medium of past experience, as the ground is the medium in which dead cities lie interred.

Benjamin, Walter

18.

Sweet is the memory of past troubles.

Cicero, Marcus T.

19.

Memory is the scribe of the soul.

Aristotle

20.

He who is not very strong in memory should not meddle with lying.

Michel de Montaigne

21.

I have a memory like an elephant. In fact, elephants often consult me.

Coward, Noel

22.

[Memory is] a man's real possession...In nothing else is he rich, in nothing else is he poor.

Alexander Smith

23.

Though yet of Hamlet our dear brother's death the memory be green.

William Shakespeare

24.

Memory is the cabinet of the imagination, the treasury of reason, the registry of conscience, and, the council chamber of thought.

Basile

25.

Contemporaries appreciate the person rather than their merit, posterity will regard the merit rather than the person.

Colton, Charles Caleb

26.

Memory is the only paradise from which we cannot be driven.

Paul, Jean

27.

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.

Boynton, Sandra

28.

I always have trouble remembering three things: faces, names, and -- I can't remember what the third thing is.

Allen, Fred A.

29.

If I could remember your name, I'd ask you where I left my keys.

Bumper Sticker

30.

Why is it that our memory is good enough to retain the least triviality that happens to us, and yet not good enough to recollect how often we have told it to the same person?

Francois de La Rochefoucauld

31.

You can fall ill with just a memory.

Paolo Giordano

32.

Creditors have better memories than debtors.

Benjamin Franklin

33.

There is no greater sorrow than to recall happiness in times of misery.

Dante Alighieri

34.

It is singular how soon we lose the impression of what ceases to be constantly before us. A year impairs, a luster obliterates. There is little distinct left without an effort of memory, then indeed the lights are rekindled for a moment --but who can be sure that the Imagination is not the torch-bearer?

Byron, Lord

35.

Memory always obeys the commands of the heart.

Rivarol, Antoine

36.

The light of memory, or rather the light that memory lends to things, is the palest light of all. I am not quite sure whether I am dreaming or remembering, whether I have lived my life or dreamed it. Just as dreams do, memory makes me profoundly aware of the unreality, the evanescence of the world, a fleeting image in the moving water.

Ionesco, Eugene

37.

The memory represents to us not what we choose but what it pleases.

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

38.

I would forget it fain; But, O, it presses to my memory, like damned guilty deeds to a sinners mind.

William Shakespeare

39.

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.

Bowen, Elizabeth

40.

Be careful about lending a friend money. It may damage her memory.

41.

Remember, your prerogative is to govern, and not to serve the things of this world.

Kempis, Thomas

42.

We don't remember days; we remember moments.

Pavese, Cesare

43.

Memories are all we really own.

Lieberman, Elias

44.

Memory: We retain: 10 percent of what we read; 20 percent of what we hear; 30 percent of what we see ?50 percent of what we hear and see; 70 percent of what we say; 90 percent of what we say and do

45.

Own only what you can carry with you; know language, know countries, know people. Let your memory be your travel bag.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn

46.

Our memory is like a shop in the window of which is exposed now one, now another photograph of the same person. And as a rule the most recent exhibit remains for some time the only one to be seen.

Proust, Marcel

47.

We do not remember days, we remember moments. The richness of life lies in memories we have forgotten.

Pavese, Cesare

48.

The advantage of a bad memory is that one enjoys several times the same good things for the first time.

Friedrich Nietzsche

49.

To be remembered after we are dead, is but poor recompense for being treated with contempt while we are living.

Hazlitt, William

50.

It's a pleasure to share one's memories. Everything remembered is dear, endearing, touching, precious. At least the past is safe --though we didn't know it at the time. We know it now. Because it's in the past; because we have survived.

Sontag, Susan