Our memories are card-indexes consulted, and then put back in disorder by authorities whom we do not control.

Memory is a net; one finds it full of fish when he takes it from the brook; but a dozen miles of water have run through it without sticking.

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

It would add much to human happiness, if an art could be taught of forgetting all of which the remembrance is at once useless and afflictive ... that the mind might perform its functions without incumbrance, and the past might no longer encroach upon the present.

Memory is like all other human powers, with which no man can be satisfied who measures them by what he can conceive, or by what he can desire.

A strong memory is commonly coupled with infirm judgment.

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

Bliss in possession will not last; Remembered joys are never past.

Disguise our bondage as we will, Tis woman, woman, rules us still.

Memories may escape the action of the will, may sleep a long time, but when stirred by the right influence, though that influence be light as a shadow, they flash into full stature and life with everything in place.