Forgetting

“ 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. ”

“ Thus our life is not altogether a forgetting, but also, alas! to a great extent, a remembering, of that which we should never have been conscious of, certainly not in our waking hours. Why should we not meet, not always as dyspeptics, to tell our bad dreams, but sometimes as eupeptics, to congratulate each other on the ever-glorious morning? ”

“ Forgetting.—In the practical use of our intellect, forgetting is as important a function as remembering. ”

“ Thus I extend my conscious memory by invoking my larger unconscious memory.
I shall report some striking examples of forgetting which for the most part I have observed in myself. I distinguish forgetting of impressions and experiences, that is, the forgetting of knowledge, from forgetting of resolutions, that is, the forgetting of omissions. The uniform result of the entire series of observations I can formulate as follows: The forgetting in all cases is proved to be founded on a motive of displeasure. ”

“ 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. ”

“ And we profess not to explain secret things sufficiently—far from it—but only to recall them to memory, whether we have forgot aught, or whether for the purpose of not forgetting. Many things, I well know, have escaped us, through length of time, that have dropped away unwritten. ”

“ The world forgetting, by the world forgot. ”

“ He had a marvelously versatile gift for forgetting things. ”

“ To-day forgetting has perhaps grown more puzzling than remembering, especially since we have learned from the study of dreams and pathologic states that even what for a long time we believed forgotten may suddenly return to consciousness. ”

“ But to forget or to remember at pleasure, is equally beyond the power of man. Yet as memory may be assisted by method, and the decays of knowledge repaired by stated times of recollection, so the power of forgetting is capable of improvement. Reason will, by a resolute contest, prevail over imagination, and the power may be obtained of transferring the attention as judgment shall direct. ”

“ And I'll still stay, to have thee still forget, Forgetting any other home but this. ”

“ But one is on different ground when it comes to the examination of forgetting in the literal sense—i.e., the forgetting of past experiences. (To distinguish this forgetting from the others we designate sensu strictiori the forgetting of proper names and foreign words, as in Chapters I and II, as “slips”; and the forgetting of resolutions as “omissions.”) The principal conditions of the normal process in forgetting are unknown. [82] We are also reminded of the fact [Pg 331] that not all is forgotten which we believe to be. ”

“ It is this forgetfulness which is, after all, the foundation of our pleasures, for in memory is the weightier part of our misfortunes. Of a truth in the course of our journey many pains befall, and there are times of gross evil, when sorrow, as a toad, squats in our doorway, when the scales kick the balance with a rush. In such an hour we come to look upon life as the dreary passage of our commonplaces; there is neither present gain nor future hope. But how soon this mood passes! From our base ancestry we have the divine gift of forgetfulness. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Forgetfulness is what I wish for, yes. But there is no forgetfulness except in death—no Lethe save the Styx.”
“No forgetfulness except in death? You assume, then, that there is forgetfulness in death; a bold assumption. Have you no dread of something after death, the undiscovered country? Do you ignore the possibility of a future life? Suppose, beyond the grave, you preserve your identity—that is to say, your memory: in what respect will you have gained by the change?”
“I must take my risks. This much I know for certain: there is no forgetfulness in life. In death there may be. ”

“ You struggle so, or, like a wounded wolf, which, in the depths of its cave, awaits his recovery only in time, wrapped in your solitary suffering, you can, near or far, assign a term to your grief, and hope, at least, in forgetfulness. Forgetfulness,—this only inexorable reality of life! Forgetfulness,—this fathomless ocean, wherein come unceasingly to be lost all sorrow, all love, and all curses. ”

“ What a task, to watch the light of reason quivering in the eye, or with agonizing expectation to catch the beam of recollection; tantalized by hope, only to feel despair more keenly, at finding a much loved face or voice, suddenly remembered, or pathetically implored, only to be immediately forgotten, or viewed with indifference or abhorrence! ”

“ Did we behold, fair sights that might repay
All disappointment! and, as such, the eye
Delighted in them; but we felt, the while,
We should forget them:—they are of the sky,
And from our earthly memory fade away. ”

“ Mine eyes to the hunt, and my soul afar-
I was stone; but I waked with the heart of a man.
WHEN ONE FORGETS When one forgets, the old things are as dead things;
The grey leaves fall, and eyes that saw their May
Turn from them now, and voices that have said things
Wherein Life joyed, alas! are still to-day—
When one forgets. ”

“ 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? ”

“ In others, doubt, agony, fear and hope, would in turn take possession of the heart, chasing each other like shadows over the face, as question after question was put, to recall some event or scene familiar to both, till at last a common chord would be touched, when the dormant memory would awake as by an electric shock, a flood of fond recollections sweep away all uncertainty, and the lost one be hurried away amid sobs and cries of joy. ”

“ Ay, forget—it is a strange truth! we do forget! the summer passes over the furrow, and the corn springs up; the sod forgets the flower of the past year; the battle-field forgets the blood that has been spilt upon its turf; the sky forgets the storm; and the water the noon-day sun that slept upon its bosom. All Nature preaches forgetfulness. Its very order is the progress of oblivion. And I—I—give me your hand, Madeline,—I, ha! ”

“ Time flies, scattering on all that had seemed important the ash of forgetfulness, and so crowding memory into memory that the thing we recollect has no longer the shape or colour that strode against us once upon a time. ”

“ I was beginning to forget all that I had seen of life, or, if not forget, at least to regard it as a wild and troubled dream, when an accident, one of those things we always regard as the merest chances, once more opened the floodgates of memory, and sent the whole past in a strong current through my brain. ”

“ Was there ever anyone in the world who was ever missed except by one or two, and that not because he was great or even necessary, but only because he was beloved by some longing, aching heart? The waters of oblivion settle over a memory as quickly as over a puddle which is disturbed by a pebble thrown by a careless hand. ”

“ 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. ”

“ You will have noted how memory fails us as we advance in years; we recollect, with an almost painful exactitude, what we experienced and saw in our youth, but the happenings of our middle life slip away from us or become blurred, like a stretch of low-lying landscape overflowed by grey and nebulous mist. ”

“ Forget me not! though fate from thine,
My path of life may sever,
Still think of days of “auld lang syne,”
And moments fled forever.
When many a year has pass'd away,
And other ties have bound us,
Oh! ”

“ We know, all of us, when we no longer love, that forgetfulness, that even a vague memory do not cause us so much suffering as an ill-starred love. It was of such forgetfulness that in anticipation I preferred, without acknowledging it to myself, the reposeful tranquillity. ”

“ Yet if you should forget me for a while
⁠And afterwards remember, do not grieve:
⁠For if the darkness and corruption leave
⁠A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
Better by far you should forget and smile
⁠Than that you should remember and be sad. ”

“ But there is one object to which the mind and eye turn back yet again, and which by associations variously tender, pathetic, or amusing, lead memory off for a while to wander in the dreamy mazes of the past. ”

“ Memory, that scourge of the unlucky, revived the very stories of the past, and even distilled a few drops of honey into the proffered draught of venom—and all this, too, simply to crush a man with the consciousness of his mistakes, and make him love this past and deprive him of hope in the future. ”

“ There are several sad deeds in the life of every one of us which we cannot forget, but how many which we have all forgot. The things we can remember are as the milestones to the weary traveller, far, far apart. ”

“ It is something even if one is bent double and may never again behold the light of day, to be able to reach back into a dim and forgotten past and to say, "I remember," especially when the memory recalls days of brilliance and of importance. ”

“ I said. “You give one with a perpetual and intense freshness feelings and sensations that are as old as the world itself, and you imagine that your enchantment can be broken off anywhere, at any time! But it can’t be broken. And forgetfulness, like everything else, can only come from you. It’s an impossible situation to stand up against.”
She listened with slightly parted lips as if to catch some further resonances. ”

“ All human memory is fraught with sorrow and trouble. My memory is as the memory of other men, but other men have not this choice. Yes, I close the bargain. Yes! I WILL forget my sorrow, wrong, and trouble! ”

“ Its fever and its frolic and its fun;
The old life with its din, its laughter and its sin —
And chuck me in the gutter when it’s done.
Ah, well! it’s past and gone, and the memory is wan,
That conjures up each old familiar face ”

“ 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. ”

“ Memory, like a horrible malady, was eating his soul away. ”

“ And from Love's very bosom, and from Gain, Or Folly, or a Friend, or from Repose— From all but keen Ambition—will the soul Snatch the first moment of forgetfulness To wander like a restless child away. ”

“ You have been grieving over the hours which have been run to waste, without pausing to reflect, that while you have been occupied with these unavailing regrets, another hour has glided away past your recall forever ”

“ 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. ”