You can’t go back home to your family, back home to your childhood, back home to romantic love, back home to a young man’s dreams of glory and of fame, back home to exile, to escape to Europe and some foreign land, back home to lyricism, to singing just for singing’s sake, back home to aestheticism, to one’s youthful idea of “the artist” and the all-sufficiency of “art” and “beauty” and “love”, back home to the ivory tower, back home to places in the country, to the cottage in Bermuda, away from all the strife and conflict of the world, back home to the father you have lost and have been looking for, back home to someone who can help you, save you, ease the burden for you, back home to the old forms and systems of things which once seemed everlasting but which are changing all the time — back home to the escapes of Time and Memory.
Thomas Wolfe (1900-1938) American writer
You Can’t Go Home Again, Book 7 “A Wind Is Rising and the Rivers Flow” (1940)
(Source)
Quotations about:
memory
Note not all quotations have been tagged, so Search may find additional quotes on this topic.
It’s so hard to forget pain, but it’s even harder to remember sweetness. We have no scar to show for happiness. We learn so little from peace.
Chuck Palahniuk (b. 1962) American novelist and freelance journalist
Diary (2003)
Darkness and light divide the course of time, and oblivion shares with memory a great part even of our living beings; we slightly remember our felicities, and the smartest strokes of affliction leave but short smart upon us. Sense endureth no extremities and sorrows destroy us or themselves. To weep into Stones are fables. Afflictions induce callousities, miseries are slippery, or fall like Snow upon us, which notwithstanding is no unhappy stupidity. To be ignorant of evils to come, and forgetful of evils past, is a merciful provision in nature, whereby we digest the mixture of our few and evil days, and our delivered senses not relapsing into cutting remembrances, our sorrows are not kept raw by the edge of repetitions.
Thomas Browne (1605-1682) English physician and author
Hydriotaphia, or Urne-Buriall, ch. 5 (1658)
(Source)
Am I the person who used to wake in the middle of the night and laugh with the joy of living? Who worried about the existence of God, and danced with young ladies till long after daybreak? Who sang “Auld Lang Syne” and howled with sentiment, and more than once gazed at the full moon through a blur of great, romantic tears?
Logan Pearsall Smith (1865-1946) American-English essayist, editor, anthologist
More Trivia, “Last Words” (1934)
Tragedy plus time equals comedy.
Steve Allen (1922-2000) American composer, entertainer, and wit.
“Steve Allen’s Almanac,” Cosmopolitan (Feb 1957)
Similar formulations have been made by Carol Burnett, Lenny Bruce, Bob Newhart, and Woody Allen. For more discussion see here.
It is perfectly true, as the philosophers say, that life must be understood backwards. But they forget the other proposition, that it must be lived forwards.
Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) Danish philosopher, theologian
Journals IV.A.164 (1843)
Commonly paraphrased: "Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards."
Every old man complains of the growing depravity of the world, of the petulance and insolence of the rising generation. He recounts the decency and regularity of former times, and celebrates the discipline and sobriety of the age in which his youth was passed; a happy age which is now no more to be expected, since confusion has broken in upon the world, and thrown down all the boundaries of civility and reverence.
Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) English writer, lexicographer, critic
The Rambler, #50 (8 Sep 1750)
(Source)
She was a grown up now, and she discovered that being a grown up was not quite what she had suspected it would be when she was a child. She had thought then that she would make a conscious decision one day to simply put her toys and games and little make-believes away. Now she discovered that was not what happened at all. Instead, she discovered, interest simply faded. It became less and less and less, until a dust of years drew over the bright pleasures of childhood, and they were forgotten.
Stephen King (b. 1947) American author
The Eyes of the Dragon (1987)
For as much as I hate the cemetery, I’ve been grateful it’s here, too. I miss my wife. It’s easier to miss her at a cemetery, where she’s never been anything but dead, than to miss her in all the places where she was alive.
John Scalzi (b. 1969) American writer
Old Man’s War (2005)
The cheerful live longest in life, and after it, in our regards.
Christian Nestell Bovee (1820-1904) American epigrammatist, writer, publisher
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought (1862)
But, on the other hand, Uncle Abner said that the person that had took a bull by the tail once had learnt sixty or seventy times as much as a person that hadn’t, and said a person that started in to carry a cat home by the tail was gitting knowledge that was always going to be useful to him, and warn’t ever going to grow dim or doubtful.
Mark Twain (1835-1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
Tom Sawyer Abroad, ch. 10 (1894)
(Source)
Frequently misquoted as "A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way."
THE DOCTOR: We all change. When you think about it, we’re all different people all through our lives, and that’s okay, that’s good, you gotta keep moving, so long as you remember all the people that you used to be.
Steven Moffat (b. 1961) Scottish television writer, producer
Doctor Who, “The Time of the Doctor” (25 Dec 2013)
The pleasure of remembering had been taken from me, because there was no longer anyone to remember with. It felt like losing your co-rememberer meant losing the memory itself, as if the things we’d done were less real and important than they had been hours before.
John Green (b. 1977) American author
The Fault in Our Stars (2012)
Sow good services: sweet remembrances will grow from them.
Germaine de Staël (1766-1817) Swiss-French writer, woman of letters, critic, salonist [Anne Louise Germaine de Staël-Holstein, Madame de Staël, Madame Necker]
(Attributed)
In J. D. Finod (trans.), A Thousand Flashes of French Wit, Wisdom, and Wickedness (1880).
Things said or done long years ago,
Or things I did not do or say
But thought that I might say or do,
Weigh me down, and not a day
But something is recalled,
My conscience or my vanity appalled.William Butler Yeats (1865-1939) Irish poet and dramatist
“Vacillation,” st. 4 (1932), The Winding Stair and Other Poems (1933)
(Source)
The unrecorded past is none other than our old friend, the tree in the primeval forest which fell without being heard.
Barbara W. Tuchman (1912-1989) American historian and author
“Can History Be Served Up Hot?” New York Times (8 Mar 1964)
(Source)
Time does not bring relief; you all have lied
Who told me time would ease me of my pain!
I miss him in the weeping of the rain;
I want him at the shrinking of the tide;
The old snows melt from every mountain-side,
And last year’s leaves are smoke in every lane;
But last year’s bitter loving must remain
Heaped on my heart, and my old thoughts abide!
There are a hundred places where I fear
To go, — so with his memory they brim!
And entering with relief some quiet place
Where never fell his foot or shone his face
I say, “There is no memory of him here!”
And so stand stricken, so remembering him!
A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness.
Just as eating contrary to the inclination is injurious to the health, so study without desire spoils the memory, and it retains nothing that it takes in.
Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) Italian artist, engineer, scientist, polymath
Note-books, 1 [tr. McCurdy (1908)]
Let us then admit that there are two histories: the actual series of events that once occurred; and the ideal series that we affirm and hold in memory. The first is absolute and unchanged — it was what it was whatever we do or say about it; the second is relative, always changing in response to the increase or refinement of knowledge. The two series correspond more or less, it is our aim to make the correspondence as exact as possible; but the actual series of events exists for us only in terms of the ideal series which we affirm and hold in memory.
Carl L. Becker (1873-1945) American historian
“Everyman His Own Historian” (1), speech, American Historical Association, Minneapolis (29 Dec 1931)
(Source)
It was one of those perfect English autumnal days which occur more frequently in memory than in life.
P. D. James (1920-2014) British mystery writer [Phyllis Dorothy James White]
“Rhesus Positive,” A Taste for Death (1986)
We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect.
Anaïs Nin (1903-1977) Catalan-Cuban-French author, diarist
(Attributed)
Memory is often the attribute of stupidity; it generally belongs to heavy spirits whom it makes even heavier by the baggage it loads them down with.
François-René de Chateaubriand (1768-1848) French writer, politican, diplomat
Memoirs from Beyond the Grave [Mémoires d’Outre-Tombe], Book 2, ch. 1 (1848-1850) [tr. Kline]
I shudder as I tell the tale.
[Horresco réferens]
Virgil (70-19 BC) Roman poet [b. Publius Vergilius Maro; also Vergil]
The Aeneid [Ænē̆is], Book 2, l. 204 (2.204) [Aeneas] (29-19 BC) [tr. Fairclough (1916)]
(Source)
Telling Dido of the terrible deaths of the Trojan priest Laocoön and his sons.
(Source (Latin)). Alternate translations:
I shake to mention.
[tr. Ogilby (1649)]
I shudder at the relation.
[tr. Davidson/Buckley (1854)]
I quail,
E'en now, at telling of the tale
[tr. Conington (1866)]
I shudder as I tell.
[tr. Cranch (1872)]
I shudder as I recall.
[tr. Mackail (1885)]
I tremble in the tale.
[tr. Morris (1900)]
The tale I shudder to pursue
[tr. Taylor
(1907)]I shudder as I tell.
[tr. Williams (1910)]
I shudder even now,
Recalling it.
[tr. Humphries (1951)]
Telling it makes me shudder.
[tr. Day-Lewis (1952)]
I shudder
to tell what happened.
[tr. Mandelbaum (1971)]
I shiver to recall it.
[tr. Fitzgerald (1981)]
I shudder at the memory of it.
[tr. West (1990)]
I shudder to tell it.
[tr. Kline (2002)]
I shudder to recall them.
[tr. Lombardo (2005)]
I cringe to recall it now.
[tr. Fagles (2006)]
I shudder at the telling.
[tr. Bartsch (2021)]
Time robs us of all, even of memory.
[Omnia fert aetas, animum quoque.]
Virgil (70-19 BC) Roman poet [b. Publius Vergilius Maro; also Vergil]
Eclogues [Eclogae, Bucolics, Pastorals], No. 9 “Lycidas and Moeris,” l. 51 (9.51) [Moeris] (42-38 BC) [tr. Fairclough (Loeb) (1916)]
(Source)
(Source (Latin)). Alternate translations:
Age all things wasts: the minde too.
[tr. Ogilby (1649)]
The rest I have forgot, for Cares and Time
Change all things, and untune my Soul to Rhyme.
[tr. Dryden (1709), ll. 70-71]
Ah! age, which pilfers all, not e'en the memory spares!
[tr. Wrangham (1830), l. 60]
Age bears away all things, even the mind itself.
[tr. Davidson (1854)]
Time carries all -- our memories e'en -- away.
[tr. Calverley (c. 1871)]
Time steals everything, memory among the rest.
[tr. Wilkins (1873)]
Now memory scarce can aught recall;
The note is lost, the voice, the all.
[tr. King (1882), ll. 901-902]
Alas! Old age bears hard on everything;
On memory most.
[tr. Palmer (1883)]
Time carries all things, even our wits, away.
[tr. Greenough (1895)]
Age bears away all things, even the memory itself.
[tr. Bryce (1897)]
Time runs away with all things, the mind too.
[tr. Mackail (1899)]
How time wears all things out!
Even the memory.
[tr. Mackail/Cardew (1908)]
Ah, time takes all we have, the memory too.
[tr. Williams (1915)]
Time bears away
All things, even the mind.
[tr. Royds (1922)]
Time carries everything away, even our memory.
[tr. Rieu (1949)]
Age robs us of all things,
Even the mind.
[tr. Johnson (1960)]
Time bears all away, even memory.
[tr. Day Lewis (1963)]
Time takes all we have away from us.
[tr. Ferry (1999)]
Time takes away all things, memory too.
[tr. Kline (2001)]
And is he dead whose glorious mind
Lifts thine on high?
To live in the hearts we leave
Is not to die!
That sign of old age, extolling the past at the expense of the present.
Sydney Smith (1771-1845) English clergyman, essayist, wit
Lady Holland’s Memoir, Vol. 1, ch. 11 (1855)
(Source)
The holiest of holidays are those
Kept by ourselves in silence and apart;
The secret anniversaries of the heart,
When the full river of feeling overflows.
Th’ past always looks better thin it was. It’s only pleasant because it isn’t here.
[The past always looks better than it was. It’s only pleasant because it isn’t here.]
Finley Peter Dunne (1867-1936) American humorist and journalist
A Family Union, “Mr. Dooley”
Trust not the heart of that man for whom old clothes are not venerable.
Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) Scottish essayist and historian
Sartor Resartus, Book 3, ch. 6 (1831)
(Source)
Originality is the fine art of remembering what you hear, but forgetting where you heard it.
Lawrence J. Peter (1919-1990) American educator, management theorist
The Peter Principle (1969)
