History is a people’s memory, and without a memory man is demoted to the level of the lower animals.

A monument is money wasted. My memory will live on if my life has deserved it.

God gave us memory so that we might have roses in December.

To endeavor to forget anyone is a certain way of thinking of nothing else.

I’ve a grand memory for forgetting.

Memory is like the moon, which hath its new, its full, and its wane.

The true art of memory is the art of attention.

Everyone complains about his memory, and no one complains about his judgment.

Anyone who in discussion quotes authority uses his memory rather than his intellect.

Everything remembered is dear, endearing, touching, precious. At least the past is safe—though we didn’t know it at the time.

Some memories are like lucky charms, talismans, one shouldn’t tell about them or they’ll lose their power.

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, chawing a hunk of melon in the dust.

He who is afraid of his own memories is cowardly, really cowardly.