Memory

Memory is the mother of gratitude.
~ William Adams, D.D., Thanksgiving: Memories of the Day; Helps to the Habit (1867). Introductory: Memories and Habit

How many memories, whose subjects went long ago, are kept green, year after year, by showers of remembering tears!
~ William Rounseville (W.R.) Alger, in The Galaxy, Volume VI (1868). The History of Tears

Four ducks on a pond,
A grass-bank beyond,
A blue sky of spring,
White clouds on the wing:
What a little thing
To remember for years --
To remember with tears!
~ William Allingham, from Flower Pieces and Other Poems (1888). A Memory

Memories are hunting horns
Whose sound dies on the wind.
~ Guillaume Apollinaire (Wilhelm-Apollinaris de Kostrowitzky), Alcools (1912). Cors de Chasse

The heart keeps what it loves; what it dislikes it lets go.
~ William Arnot, Laws from Heaven for Life on Earth: Illustrations of the Book of Proverbs (1857). XIV. A Good Memory

Nobody counts the number of ads you run; they just remember the impression you make.
~ Bill Bernbach

I walk in sadness and alone
Beside Time's flowing river;
Their steps I trace upon the sand
Who wondered with me hand in hand,
But now are gone forever.
~ William Goldsmith Brown, Waiting

Did therewith bury in oblivion.
~ William Browne, of Tavistock, Britannia's Pastorals, Book I (1613). Song II

What has brought unique, irreplaceable me -- out of all the possibilities of life -- here, now, to this? Was all my youth -- the paper route after school, the stolen moments in the back seats of borrowed cars, the football workouts, the cramming for finals -- meant to end this way, dying in a muddy paddy?
~ William Broyles, Jr. (Memorial Day tribute), in The New York Times (26 May 1986).

I often come to this quiet place,
To breathe the airs that ruffle thy face,
And gaze upon thee in silent dream,
For in thy lonely and lovely stream
An image of that calm life appears
That won my heart in my greener years.
~ William Cullen Bryant, from Poems (1821). Green River

Peace to the just man's memory, -- let it grow
Greener with years, and blossom through the flight
Of ages.
~ William Cullen Bryant, from Poems (1821). The Ages

The same sweet sounds are in my ear
My early childhood loved to hear.
~ William Cullen Bryant, from Poems (1832 edition). The Rivulet

A lot of memories.
~ William Joseph "Bill" Buckner (recalling Game 6 of the 1986 World Series), The Associated Press (26 July 2002). Buckner returns to Shea

Think of those far-away heroes of ours,
And cover them over with beautiful flowers!
~ William McKendree ("Will") Carleton, from Poems (1871). Cover Them Over. For Decoration Day

The memory breeds in me strange loneliness.
~ William Herbert Carruth, in Sunflowers: A Book of Kansas Poems (1914). Tescott

I suppose there were moonless nights and dark ones with but a silver shaving and pale stars in the sky, but I remember them all as flooded with the rich indolence of a full moon.
~ Willa Sibert Cather, from Obscure Destinies (1932). Two Friends

Life began for me when I ceased to admire and began to remember.
~ Willa Sibert Cather, quoted in Willa Cather: A Memoir (1953).

Some memories are realities, and are better than anything that can ever happen to one again.
~ Willa Sibert Cather, My Ántonia (1918). Book V. Cuzak's Boys

There are many that I miss,
having sent my last one out a car window
sparking along the road one night, years ago.
~ Billy Collins, The Art of Drowning (1995). The Best Cigarette

Thank you for remembering me. I'm also happy to be accepting this trophy before I become incontinent.
~ Bill Cosby, The Associated Press (3 May 2002). NBC Pays Tribute to Bill Cosby

Be it a weakness, it deserves some praise; We love the play-place of our early days.
~ William Cowper, Tirocinium, or a Review of Schools (1784).

Fancy shall weave a charm for my relief.
~ William Cowper, from Poems (1798). On Receipt Of My Mother's Picture (written in 1790)

Oh that those lips had language! Life has pass'd
With me but roughly since I heard thee last.
~ William Cowper, from Poems (1798). On Receipt Of My Mother's Picture (written in 1790).

[T]he tree is my seat, that once lent me a shade.
~ William Cowper, published in The Gentleman's Magazine (January 1785). The Poplar Field

This fond attachment to the well-known place,
Whence first we started into life's long race,
Maintains its hold with such unfailing sway,
We feel it e'en in age, and at our latest day.
~ William Cowper, Tirocinium, or a Review of Schools (1784).

What peaceful hours I once enjoy'd!
How sweet their mem'ry still!
But they have left an aching void,
The world can never fill.
~ William Cowper, from Olney Hymns (1779). Book I: On Select Passages of Scripture. Walking with God

The interview or conversation was prose at the time, but it is poetry in the memory.
~ George William Curtis

Would that I could bequeath to you
My joy in Earth and sky --
Worth more than gold or precious stones,
To be remembered by.
~ William Henry (W.H.) Davies, A Poet's Alphabet (1925). W For Will

A great many complimentary things have been said about the faculty of memory, and if you look in a good quotation book you will find them neatly arranged.
~ (William) Robertson Davies, from The Enthusiasms of Robertson Davies (1979).

What man remembers every day of this life? And lost memories, as the psychologists will tell you, are recoverable. For the memory appears to be a palimpsest, from which nothing is ever obliterated. If we have forgotten most days and incidents of our present lives, it is natural that memories of previous lives should fail us.
~ William (W.) MacNeile Dixon, from The Human Situation: The Gifford lectures delivered in the University of Glasgow, 1935-1937 (1937).

We've done plenty of shows. Even I don't remember half of them. I'll see them and think, "I have no idea where this is going. This is a real potboiler."
~ David William Duchovny (on X-Files), in Style Magazine (April 2000). Man of Style - Q&A

It is this deep blankness is the real thing strange.
The more things happen to you the more you can't
Tell or remember even what they were.
~ William Empson, from Collected Poems (rev. edition, 1955). Let it Go

Memory believes before knowing remembers. Believes longer than recollects, longer than knowing even wonders.
~ William Faulkner, Light in August (1932).

That is the substance of remembering -- sense, sight, smell, the muscles with which we see and hear and feel -- not mind, not thought: there is no such thing as memory: the brain recalls just what the muscles grope for: no more, no less: and its resultant sum is usually incorrect and false and worthy only of the name of dream.
~ William Faulkner, Absalom, Absalom! (1936).

The qualities of a good memory are susceptibility, retentiveness, and readiness.
~ William Fleming, The Vocabulary of Philosophy, Mental, Moral, and Metaphysical (1856).

Remember me is all I ask, and yet
If the remembrance be a task -- forget!
~ (William) Percy French

Some things you teach yourself to remember to forget.
~ William Gibson, Count Zero (March 1986). Chapter 28

Peace, peace, old heart! Why waken from its slumbers
The aching memory of the old, old days?
~ William Schwenck (W.S.) Gilbert, from Songs of a Savoyard (1890). Eheu Fugaces -!

Man is the only creature we know, that, when the term of his natural life is ended, leaves the memory of himself behind him.
~ William Godwin, Thoughts on Man, His Nature, Productions and Discoveries (1831). Essay IV. Of the Durability of Human Achievements and Productions

People don't remember me. Really. It's not any paranoid thing; I just have this habit of slipping through memories. It doesn't bother me all that much, except I guess that's a lie; it does. For some reason, I test very high on forgettability.
~ William Goldman, The Princess Bride (1973). Introduction

He has made a chasm which not only nothing can fill up, but which nothing has a tendency to fill up.
~ William Gerard Hamilton, quoted in Boswell's Life of Dr. Johnson

In Planting, Pleasure and Profit go Hand in Hand; And such Pleasure, as will leave no Regret behind it, but rather a Comfort to the Planter, who may justly reflect, that when he is no more, his Neighbours will remember the Man who beautified and ennobled their adjacent Prospects.
~ William Hanbury, Essay on Planting (1758).

It is highly probable that all proverbial sayings were at first literally comparisons, as this would tend to fix them more indelibly upon the memory.
~ William Harris, A Homiletical Commentary on the Book of Proverbs (1878). Introduction and Preface

The objects that we have known in better days are the main props that sustain the weight of our affections, and give us strength to await our future lot.
~ William Hazlitt, Table-Talk; or, Original Essays, Volume II (1821-1822). Essay III. On the Past and Future

The memory will not be ruled as to what it shall bind and what it shall loose.
~ William Dean Howells, from Literary Friends and Acquaintances (1900). The White Mr. Longfellow

[A]ll improvement of the memory lies in the line of elaborating the associates of each of the several things to be remembered.
~ William James, The Principles of Psychology (1890). Vol. 1. Chapter XVI: Memory

Most men have a good memory for facts connected with their own pursuits.
~ William James, The Principles of Psychology (1890). Vol. 1. Chapter XVI: Memory

Most people, probably, are in doubt about certain matters ascribed to their past. They may have seen them, may have said them, done them, or they may only have dreamed or imagined they did so.
~ William James, The Principles of Psychology (1890). Vol. 1. Chapter X: The Consciousness of Self

[T]he one who thinks over his experiences most, and weaves them into the most systemic relations with each other, will be the one with the best memory.
~ William James, Talks to Teachers on Psychology: and to Students on Some of Life's Ideals (March 1899). XII. Memory

The 'secret of a good memory' is thus the secret of forming diverse and multiple associations with every fact we care to retain.
~ William James, Talks to Teachers on Psychology: and to Students on Some of Life's Ideals (March 1899). XII. Memory

I can't remember faces, don't remember names, but after awhile and a thousand miles it all becomes the same.
~ Billy Joel

All joy is sweetened by remembered pain.
~ William Cranston Lawton, from Folia Dispersa (1895). Nostalgia (Italy, 1882)

The hunger and thirst for knowledge, the keen delight in the chase, the good humored willingness to admit that the scent was false, the eager desire to get on with the work, the cheerful resolution to go back and begin again, the broad good sense, the unaffected modesty, the imperturbable temper, the gratitude for any little help that was given -- all these will remain in my memory though I cannot paint them for others.
~ Frederic William Maitland

Abruptly the poker of memory stirs the ashes of recollection and uncovers a forgotten ember, still smoldering down there, still hot, still glowing, still red as red.
~ William Raymond Manchester, Goodbye, Darkness: A Memoir of the Pacific War (1980).

I have an amazing ability to forget.
~ Gene William Mauch

What makes old age hard to bear is not a failing of one's faculties, mental and physical, but the burden of one's memories.
~ W. Somerset Maugham, from Points of View (1958).

After it was over, it was pretty much like any other game. I just thought it was another home run to win a ballgame and would never last 40 years.
~ Bill "Maz" Mazeroski, in ESPN "Classic's SportsCentury" (2001).

There is nothing like an odor to stir memories.
~ William McFee, Harbours of Memory (1921). The Market

I remember the rain with its bundle of roads.
The rain taking all its roads.
Nowhere.
~ William Stanley (W.S.) Merwin, from The Moving Target (1963). Air

History has remembered the kings and warriors, because they destroyed; Art has remembered the people, because they created.
~ William Morris, from Hopes and Fears for Art (1882). The Art of the People

O say ye'll think on me, Willie,
When I am deid and gane!
~ William Motherwell, from Poems Narrative and Lyrical (1832). My Heid is like to Rend, Willie

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, Euthanasy: Or, Happy Talk Towards the End of Life (1848). Chapter XXXVII

Blessed are the forgetful: for they get the better even of their blunders.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil (1885-86).

He who writes in blood and aphorisms does not want to be read, he wants to be learned by heart.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra (1885). Reading and Writing

"I have done that," says my memory. "I cannot have done that" -- says my pride, and remains adamant. At last -- memory yields.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

It is hard enough to remember my opinions, without also remembering my reasons for them!
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

One must have a good memory to be able to keep the promises one makes.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human (1878).

Some people do not become thinkers simply because their memories are too good.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

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

The so called unconscious inferences can be traced back to the all-preserving memory, which presents us with parallel experiences and hence already knows the consequences of an action. It is not anticipation of the effects; rather, it is the feeling: identical causes, identical effects ...
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

It's strange indeed how memories can lie dormant in a man's mind for so many years. Yet those memories can be awakened and brought forth fresh and new, just by something you've seen, or something you've heard, or the sight of an old familiar face.
~ Wilson Rawls, Where the Red Fern Grows (1961).

A sure certainty about our Memorial days is as fast as the ranks from one war thin out, the ranks from another take their place. Prominent men run out of Decoration Day speeches, but the world never runs out of wars.
~ Will Rogers, (1929)

We lingered long, for dearer
Than home were the mountain places
Where God from the stars dropt nearer
Our pale, dreamy faces.
~ George William (A.E.) Russell, Collected Poems by A.E. (1913). A Memory

I see my old friends, and then I hear that they have died and have been buried, and then I remember them. And then I see another old friend. The reality of boys 60 years ago still lingers in the men.
~ William Saroyan, on KPFA and KFCF radio stations (monologue; 17 February 1976). Growing Up in Fresno

Briefly thyself remember.
~ William Shakespeare, King Lear. Act IV, scene vi

Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate;
For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.
~ William Shakespeare, Sonnet 29

He that is strucken blind cannot forget
The precious treasure of his eyesight lost.
~ William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet. Act I, scene i

How sharp the point of this remembrance is!
~ William Shakespeare, The Tempest. Act IV, scene i

I cannot but remember such things were,
That were most precious to me.
~ William Shakespeare, Macbeth. Act IV, scene iii

I'll note you in my book of memory.
~ William Shakespeare, King Henry VI, Part I. Act II, scene iv

Let us not burden our remembrances
With a heaviness that's gone.
~ William Shakespeare, The Tempest. Act V, scene i

[M]emory, the warder of the brain.
~ William Shakespeare, Macbeth. Act I, scene vii

More are men's ends mark'd than their lives before,
The setting sun, and music at the close,
As the last taste of sweets, is sweetest last,
Writ in remembrance more than things lost past.
~ William Shakespeare, King Richard II. Act II, scene i

O thou that dost inhabit in my breast,
Leave not the mansion so long tenantless;
Lest, growing ruinous, the building fall,
And leave no memory of what it was!
~ William Shakespeare, The Two Gentlemen of Verona. Act V, scene iv

Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll remember with advantages
What feats he did that day.
~ William Shakespeare, King Henry V. Act IV, scene iii

Praising what is lost
Makes the remembrance dear.
~ William Shakespeare, All's Well that Ends Well. Act V, scene iii

Then must you speak
Of One that lov'd not wisely but too well.
~ William Shakespeare, Othello. Act V, scene ii

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.
~ William Shakespeare, Sonnet 30

Within the book and volume of my brain.
~ William Shakespeare, Hamlet. Act I, scene v

Let the bucket of memory down into the well,
bring it up. Cool, cool minutes. No one
stirring, no plans. Just being there.
~ William Stafford, in The Way It Is (1998). Just Thinking

Always remember to take the door-key.
~ William Makepeace Thackeray, in Ballads and Tales (1869). The Willow-Tree. Stanza 9

[W]e are stricken by memory sometimes, and old affections rush back on us as vivid as in the time when they were our daily talk.
~ William Makepeace Thackeray, The Newcomes (1853-55). Chapter XV

You can't order remembrance out of a man's mind; and a wrong that was a wrong yesterday must be a wrong to-morrow.
~ William Makepeace Thackeray, The Virginians: A Tale of the Last Century (1857-59). Chapter X. A Hot Afternoon

The Alzheimer's Association in the United States developed a checklist, the 10 Warning Signs of Alzheimer's disease, to help family members, health care professionals and others recognize signs of the disease early. Being aware of cognitive changes in a loved one are important whether it is for Alzheimer's disease or for treating a potentially reversible condition.
~ William Thies, Ph.D., Alzheimer's Association News Release (10 July 2000). Impaired Memory May Not Be a Sign of Alzheimer's or Other Form of Dementia: Study finds larger percentage of people really have reversible conditions

Occasionally we sigh for an earlier day when we could just look at the stars without worrying whether they were theirs or ours.
~ William E. "Bill" Vaughan, in The Kansas City Star

Are there memories left that are safe from the clutches of phony anniversarists?
~ William J. (W.J.) Wetherby, in Guardian (18 April 1989).

Oh! when I look back now over my life and call to mind what I might have had simply for taking and did not take, my heart is like to break.
~ William Hale White (aka Mark Rutherford), More Pages from a Journal, With Other Papers (1910). Confessions of a Self-Tormentor

Back on its golden hinges
The gate of Memory swings,
And my heart goes into the garden
And walks with the olden things.
~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Shells (1873). Memory's Garden

Now that all has faded away, there comes, like the Alpen glow after sunset, a reflection of so much beauty and delight, that the mere recollection fills the heart with joy, and makes me long to live again amid the continual verdure of perpetual Summer.
~ Mary H. Wills, A Winter in California (1889). Preface

If you can remember the sixties, you weren't there.
~ Robin Williams

I give you truth in the pleasant disguise of illusion.
~ Thomas Lanier ("Tennessee") Williams, The Glass Menagerie (1944). Scene One

In memory everything seems to happen to music.
~ Thomas Lanier ("Tennessee") Williams, The Glass Menagerie (1944). Scene One

[L]ife is all memory, except for the one present moment that goes by you so quick you hardly catch it going.
~ Thomas Lanier ("Tennessee") Williams, The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore (1963).

Memory takes a lot of poetic license. It omits some details; others are exaggerated, according to the emotional value of the articles it touches, for memory is seated predominantly in the heart.
~ Thomas Lanier ("Tennessee") Williams, The Glass Menagerie (1944). Scene One

Is there no way fond memory can keep you,
Forgotten ancient things of the family of man?
~ Waldo Goronwy Williams, in The Peacemakers: Selected Poems (English translation, 1997). Remembering (Cofio)

Love is a young green willow
shimmering at the bare wood's edge.
~ William Carlos Williams, from Sour Grapes (1921). Epitaph

May Wisdom crown our land,
May Peace and Plenty stand,
And Right our land command,
Time without end.
~ William Woodman, The Teachers World (May 1892). Our Patriot Dead

An unexampled voice of awful memory.
~ William Wordsworth, from Miscellaneous Sonnets, Part I (1827). On the Death of His Late Majesty

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.
~ William Wordsworth, The Excursion (1814). Book VII: The Churchyard among the Mountains (continued)

[W]hen thy mind
Shall be a mansion for all lovely forms,
Thy memory be as a dwelling-place
For all sweet sounds and harmonies.
~ William Wordsworth, from Lyrical Ballads (1798). Lines composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey

Will no one tell me what she sings? --
Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow
For old, unhappy, far-off things,
And battles long ago.
~ William Wordsworth, from Memorials of a Tour in Scotland (1803). VIII. The Solitary Reaper

One had a lovely face,
And two or three had charm,
But charm and face were in vain.
Because the mountain grass
Cannot keep the form
Where the mountain hare has lain.
~ William Butler Yeats, from The Wild Swans at Coole (1919 edition). Memory

Those images that yet
Fresh images beget,
That dolphin-torn, that gong-tormented sea.
~ William Butler Yeats, from The Winding Stair and Other Poems (1933). Byzantium