Forget-me-not

“ You must not say such things to me. For you only to look at me like that is the most terrible temptation of my life. You make me forget everything a man is bound—that I of all men am bound to remember. ”

“ Why do we so often forget what we the most desire to remember? and why, without any volition of our own, do we suddenly recall things, people, places, we know not why or wherefore? Sometimes that very remembrance will haunt us like a ghost, and quite as causelessly, which at another time is a blank. Alas for love! whose very existence depends on a faculty over which we have so little control. ”

“ All this, I say, I have done, and a thousand other very silly, though very disinterested, things in my time, and for all which no soul cares a farthing about me.... Is it to be wondered that he should once in his life forget you, who has been all his life forgetting himself? ”

“ Let me remember all I do not know, and let my voice be still, remembering. But let me not forget Your Love and care, keeping Your promise to Your Son in my awareness always. Let me not forget myself is nothing, but my Self is all. ”

“ The very word makes one think of mourning rings, and everlasting flowers, and urns, and mementoes of all sorts. Why are people so afraid of forgetting? There is nothing more beautiful than to forget, except, perhaps, to be forgotten. ”

“ He pressed his burning lips to her cool neck, and then, after a moment, went on, "Yes, beloved, to forget. Think, Opal, think! To forget all ambition, all restlessness, all disappointment, all longing for what can never be, all pain, all suffering, all thought of responsibility or growth or desire, all success or failure—all life, all death—to forget! to forget! Ah, dearest, one must have loved as we have loved, and lost as we have lost, to wish to—forget!"
"But there is no such respite for us, Paul. We are not the sort who can put memory aside. To live will be to remember!" ”

“ I suppose it would be best to forget, as everybody else does."
"Not everybody," I said very low.
"No, you don't forget. I've noticed that. It's foolish, but I like someone to remember. Suppose you forgot too!" ”

“ But if I could have helped it, knowing with just what measure of pain and joy it would brim my cup, I would have chosen to love you, Una. There are those who strive to forget a hopeless love. To me, the greatest misfortune that life could bring would be that I should forget you. ”

“ If we were disposed to forget these things there are those around us with whom we are brought into frequent contact, who take great and especial pains to remind us of our insignificance, so that I think there is no real danger of our entirely forgetting it. ”

“ There is more than the germ of truth in things erroneous in the child’s definition of memory as the thing one forgets with. To be able to forget means sanity. Incessantly to remember, means obsession, lunacy. So the problem I faced in solitary, where incessant remembering strove for possession of me, was the problem of forgetting. When I gamed with flies, or played chess with myself, or talked with my knuckles, I partially forgot. ”

“ I should rid myself of this Changeling yet.
I carried my woe to the Wise Man yonder,
"You sell forgetfulness, they say.
How much to pay
To forget a son who is my sorrow?"
The Wise Man began to ponder.
"Charms have I, many a one,
To make a woman forget her lover,
A man his wife or a fortune fled,
To make the day forget the morrow,
The doer forget the deed he has done,
But a mighty spell must I borrow
To make a woman forget her son,
For this I will take a royal fee. ”

“ He remembers what he wants to remember, and forgets what he wants to forget. Now, it's just the opposite with me. I forget what I want to remember—horrid stories about my friends, for instance—and I remember the sort of thing I want to forget—like—like Sunday morning. ”

“ To endeavour to forget any one is a certain way of thinking of nothing else. Love has this in common with scruples, that it becomes embittered by the reflections and the thoughts that beset us to free ourselves. ”

“ “It’s wrong, what you say, and I beg you, if you’re a good man, to forget what you’ve said, as I forget it,” she said at last.
“Not one word, not one gesture of yours shall I, could I, ever forget....” ”

“ The aisles of your heart will pass out with the dream.
You will forget me; will thank me for saying
The words which you think are so pointed with pain.
Time loves a new lay; and the dirge he is playing
Will change for you soon to a livelier strain.
I shall pass from your life—I shall pass out forever,
And these hours we have spent will be sunk in the past.
Youth buries its dead; grief kills seldom or never,
And forgetfulness covers all sorrows at last. ”

“ But you with pleasure own your errors past,
And make each day a critique on the last.
Essay on Criticism, Pt. III. A. POPE.
FORGET. Good to forgive:
Best to forget.
La Saisiaz: Prologue. R. BROWNING.
We bury love,
Forgetfulness grows over it like grass;
That is a thing to weep for, not the dead.
A Boy's Poem. A. SMITH.
Go, forget me—why should sorrow
O'er that brow a shadow fling?
Go, forget me—and to-morrow
Brightly smile and sweetly sing.
Smile—though I shall not be near thee;
Sing—though I shall never hear thee.
Song: Go, Forget Me! C. WOLFE.
Forgotten? ”

“ for that there was no atonement; but though forgiveness was impossible, forgetfulness was possible still, and he was determined to forget, to stamp the thing out, to crush it as one would crush the adder that had stung one. ”

“ Memory cheats us no less than hope by hazing over those things that we would fain forget; but who that has plodded on to middle age would take back upon his shoulders ten of the vanished years, with their mingled pleasures and pains? Who would return to the youth he is forever pretending to regret? ”

“ We certainly do not forget you, so soon as you forget us. It is, perhaps, our fate rather than our merit. We cannot help ourselves. ”

“ Many years have not passed over my head, yet, during those which I can recall to remembrance, how many things have I seen flourish, pass away, and become forgotten, except by myself, who, in spite of all my endeavours, never can forget anything. ”

“ I can see that my memory is failing a little every day, and I am getting more and more prone to forget those who do not recognize my innate and spontaneous greatness at a glance, and extend the usual courtesies. ”

“ How can I ever forget, who ever did who has ever witnessed it forget that last questioning, beseeching look of affection and dumb fright which a dying animal turns upon the face of someone he has loved? ”

“ Spoken, they had passed from her memory. It is so natural for a fair, sweet woman to forget! It is so impossible for a man who has been stabbed to help remembering, with the deep, bleeding wound unclosed! ”

“ I, who have experienced so many pleasures in loving you, feel, in spite of myself, that I cannot repent them, nor forbear through memory to enjoy them over again. Whatever efforts I use, on whatever side I turn, the sweet thought still pursues me, and every object brings to my mind what it is my duty to forget. ”

“ Those who wish to forget painful thoughts, do well to absent themselves for a while from the ties and objects that recall them; but we can be said only to fulfil our destiny in the place that gave us birth. ”

“ That is because instead of frankly seeking to forget, we make the most trivial things a pretext to recall remembrances, which is due above all to the fact that we persist in living amidst the same surroundings in which the beings who have so long been our torment lived. We are less the slaves of passion than of habit. ”

“ Therefore, you must cultivate your memory, so that it will remind you when your eyes see not. Who that is forgetful can be relied on? You have never been faithful, Johannes, and you will forget me also. ”

“ We do not ask to forget; we do not want the so-called consolations which time brings. Such an insult to the past, as forgetfulness would be, means that we have not risen to the possibilities of communion of spirit afforded us in the present. ”

“ Yet am I borne in mem'ry by the true and by the free.
Oh, were I sinking to the grave I often ask in vain,
And welcome Death stood by to loose the wasted captive's chain—
Ah, name me the Forget-me-not, I'd wake to life again! ”

“ To forget is the great secret of strong and creative lives,—to forget utterly, after the manner of Nature, who knows no past, and who each hour recommences the mysteries of her indefatigable parturitions. It is the weak who live with grief, and who, instead of changing it into apothegms of existence, toy and saturate themselves therewith, and retrograde each day to consummated misfortunes. ”

“ It may not be so with most people. They may, perhaps, suffer deeply and remember lightly; enjoy strongly and forget quickly. If so, I pity them with all my heart. When I sit down to write it is not the sad recollections that come crowding before me ”

“ But whatever it is we will never forget the sweetness of those rare, bygone days. At such times it seems to me we must have unconsciously brushed the hem of something better and higher than our everyday lives, and that is why we remember. ”

“ We may be tempted to forget Thee, may fear danger and our hearts be ruffled, may be tempted to forget that our fellow-man is one like ourselves, with our mystery and wonder, and having a very loving human heart either apparent or prevented. ”

“ Around them bloomed primrose and violet,
⁠The daffodil, and dear forget-me-not;
The while the fragrant woodruff made regret
⁠That they so soon should leave the charmed spot;
And the fond lovers looked with lips apart —
Summer in nature, summer in each heart. ”

“ When Love tired of swimming grew,
From the pool his limbs he drew,
And on the sward himself down threw.
Love upon the green sward lay,
Flowers about him every way.
The soft turf that formed his bed
Was with lilies overspread;
And from out his hair there gleamed
Blue forget-me-nots (that seemed
Like to turquoise stones when gold
Their blue beauty doth enfold) ”

“ It is so hard to forget what it is Worse than useless to remember. ”

“ When we forget thee, may our right hand forget its cunning! We owe thee much for the delight thou hast already afforded us; and rely upon thee, with confident expectation, for many a future hour of gay forgetfulness. ”

“ Married to green in all the sweetest flowers, —
Forget-me-not; the bluebell; and that queen
Of secrecy, the violet. — What strange powers
Hast thou, as a mere shadow! but how great
When in an eye thou art alive with fate! ”

“ "Yes, God forgives and men forget,
⁠And you're forgiven and forgotten.
You might be gaily sinning yet
⁠And quick and fresh instead of rotten.
And when you think of love and fame
⁠And all that might have come to pass,
Then don't you feel a little shame?
⁠And don't you think you were an ass?" ”

“ Why was he doubly irritated?
Because he had forgotten and because he remembered that he had reminded himself twice not to forget. ”

“ There are remembrances that will not vanish,—
Thoughts of the past we would but cannot banish:
As if to show how impotent mere will,
We loathe the pang, and yet must suffer still:
For who is there can say they will forget?
—It is a power no science teaches yet. ”