Lapham’s Quarterly

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

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.

Midnight shakes the memory
As a madman shakes a dead geranium.

What is the worth of human life, unless it is woven into the life of our ancestors by the records of history?

Memories are like corks left out of bottles. They swell. They no longer fit.

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

I’ve a grand memory for forgetting.

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

We are so constituted that we believe the most incredible things, and once they are engraved upon the memory, woe to him who would endeavor to erase them.