A Quote by William James
Selection is the very keel on which our mental ship is built. And in this case of memory its utility is obvious. If we remembered everything, we should on most occasions be as ill off as if we remembered nothing.
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If we remembered everything, we should on most occasions be as ill off as if we remembered nothing. It would take us as long to recall a space of time as it took the original time to elapse, and we should never get ahead with our thinking. All recollected times undergo, accordingly, what M. Ribot calls foreshortening; and this foreshortening is due to the omission of an enormous number of facts which filled them.
A broken leg can be remembered and located: "It hurt right below my knee, it throbbed, I felt sick at my stomach." But mental pain is remembered the way dreams are remembered-in fragments, unbidden realizations, like looking into a well and seeing the dim reflection of your face in that instant before the water shatters.
The true beloveds of this world are in their lover's eyes lilacs opening, ship lights, school bells, a landscape, remembered conversations, friends, a child's Sunday, lost voices, one's favorite suit, autumn and all seasons, memory, yes, it being the earth and water of existence, memory.
Home should be an oratorio of the memory, singing to all our after life melodies and harmonies of old-remembered joy.
My evaluation of President George W. Bush is nothing personal. He's a lovely person. Sadly, I believe he will be remembered for taking us into war unnecessarily at the cost of thousands of American lives, injuries to tens of thousands of our troops, and trillions of dollars to our economy - enormous costs to our reputation, and undermining the capability of our military to protect us. That, I think, will be the overwhelming issue for which his presidency will be remembered: extensive damage to our country.
People think being remembered most for one character is a negative thing, but I don't. I never expected to be remembered for anything!
Perhaps the prevalence of pedantry may be largely accounted for by the common error of thinking that, because useful knowledge should be remembered, any kind of knowledge that is at all worth learning should be remembered too.
The sexual drive is nothing but the motor memory of previously remembered pleasure.
After eight years of Barack Obama and one crazy election, we almost got it wrong. We came this close. But then we remembered who we were. Then we remembered what America was. Then we confronted our challenges and embraced our opportunities. And because we did what needed to be done in 2016, our children became the freest and most prosperous Americans that ever lived.
I remembered that, and, remembering that, I remembered everything.
There were two forests for every one you entered. There was the one you walked in, the physical echo, and then there was the one that was connected to all the other forests, with no consideration of distance, or time. The forest primeval, remembered through the collective memory of every tree in the same way that people remembered myth- through the collective subconscious that Jung mapped, the shared mythic resonance that lay buried in every human mind. Legend and myth, all tangled in an alphabet of trees remembered, not always with understanding, but with wonder. With awe.
If I should die, I have left no immortal work behind me — nothing to make my friends proud of my memory — but I have loved the principle of beauty in all things, and if I had had time I would have made myself remembered.
When everything is dark, when we are surrounded by despairing voices, when we do not see any exits, then we can find salvation in a remembered love, a love which is not simply a recollection of a bygone past but a living force which sustains us in the present. Through memory, love transcends the limits of time and offers hope at any moment of our lives.
Most of us will be remembered, in work and in life, for just a few words or deeds that made a difference to others. The way we choose to say good-bye is likely to be one of the ways we are remembered.
Nobody will go on being remembered for a very long time, unless you're Shakespeare or Milton. I have no hope of being remembered at all.
I want to be remembered as someone who tried to bring the story of our ancestors to the broadest possible audience. I want to be remembered as a man who loved his race.
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