A Quote by Varlam Shalamov

A human being survives by his ability to forget. Memory is always ready to blot out the bad and retain only the good.

Varlam Shalamov

Quote Topics

Ability Always Bad Being Forget Good His Human Human Being Memory Only Out Ready Retain

Quote Author

Varlam Shalamov
Russian - Writer
June 18, 1907 - January 17, 1982

And what we students of history always learn is that the human being is a very complicated contraption and that they are not good or bad but are good and bad and the good comes out of the bad and the bad out of the good, and the devil take the hindmost.

Robert Penn Warren

The dead are visible only in the terrible lidless eye of memory. The living, thank heaven, retain the ability to surprise and to disappoint. - Van Houten

John Green

I used to believe having a good memory meant being able to remember everything in perfect detail. Now I believe having a good memory means being able to selectively forget. It's not what I'll remember, it's what I'll forget that matters.

Amber Dermont

For one thing is needful: that a human being should attain satisfaction with himself, whether it be by means of this or that poetry or art; only then is a human being at all tolerable to behold. Whoever is dissatisfied with himself is constantly ready for revenge, and we others will be his victims, if only by having to endure his ugly sight.

Friedrich Nietzsche

The greatest gift is the ability to forget - to forget the bad things and focus on the good.

Joe Biden

He knew the world and its absurdities as only an intelligent Irishman can; which is to say that where his knowledge or memory failed him, his imagination was always ready to fill the gap.

John Fowles

The only way to get to that next peak is to be ready for that next valley. Being raised Irish, you know to always be ready for the bad times.

Rory O'Malley

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

Elbert Hubbard

Maybe the reason my memory is so bad is that I always do at least two things at once. It's easier to forget something you only half-did or quarter did.

Andy Warhol

They are inherently good - the bad reactions aren't basic. Every human being is a child of God and has more good in him than evil - but circumstances and associates can step up the bad and reduce the good. I've got great faith in the essential fairness and decency - you may say goodness - of the human being.

Norman Vincent Peale

I think the only way one can really determine whether extremism in the defense of liberty is justified, is not to approach it as an american or a european or an African or an Asian, but as a human being. If we look upon it as different types, immediately we begin to think in terms of extremism being good for one and bad for another, or bad for one and good for another. But if we look upon it, if we look upon ourselves as human beings, I doubt that anyone will deny that extremism in defense of liberty, the liberty of any human being, is no vice.

Malcolm X

Intelligence is an extremely subtle concept. It's a kind of understanding that flourishes if it's combined with a good memory, but exists anyway even in the absence of good memory. It's the ability to draw consequences from causes, to make correct inferences, to foresee what might be the result, to work out logical problems, to be reasonable, rational, to have the ability to understand the solution from perhaps insufficient information. You know when a person is intelligent, but you can be easily fooled if you are not yourself intelligent.

Isaac Asimov

Will not a tiny speck very close to our vision blot out the glory of the world, and leave only a margin by which we see the blot? I know no speck so troublesome as self.

George Eliot

My marks were always bad, and I was a bad influence on other children, so they would explain to my mother that they could retain me only by being partial towards me, and so I should offer to leave the school myself. I would barely get 40-50% and was also extremely naughty.

Ram Charan

What every human being should do is eat a vegetarian diet based on whole foods. Period. That's it. Animal protein is bad for you. Dairy is bad for you. Forget the ads: Milk and eggs are bad for you.