Memo

“ Because I viewed the Report as inconsistent with the Haynes Letter, I would be concerned to the extent that the legal analysis in the report is still regarded as valid. [15] However, since the Department of Justice has publically announce that they have withdrawn the OLC Memo, [16] I would regard —— and I should assume DOD would also regard —— the Working Group Report that so heavily relied on the OLC Memo as no longer serving as any kind of appropriate guidance on the issues.
Policy. ”

“ Q. So with regard to the research you were also doing, is it also just true that whatever independent research you were doing did not then get incorporated into document company report 2016/94, the Carter Page memo?
A. That's correct. We essentially segregated this reporting from other things we were doing for reasons we discussed earlier. A lot of this is human intelligence, it's not the kind of thing that you would share with almost anyone basically. A lot of the work that we do is public record research. ”

“ To attempt an analysis of the Memoirs now laid before the public would be utterly impossible, so romantic are the narratives, so thrilling the horrors, so powerful the descriptions, so continuous the thread of its history. As a piece of Autobiography, it has many and singular characteristics, which stamp it at once as one of the most interesting and peculiar narratives ever penned, replete with astonishing incident and instructive moral. ”

“ Memoirs, recollections, anecdotes of the Bar or of the Academy are much more interesting, and may be valuable as throwing sidelights on history, but still only amuse and help to kill the time of which we forget the value. ”

“ We get it, especially, not from the history of the theorist or the statistician, but from the actual, naïve, human record to be found in memoirs, in popular literature, in architecture, painting, sculpture, and music, in the industrial arts, in every unforced product of the mind. ”

“ Every scrap of paper he wrote upon is now considered a precious relic and a great deal of it is printed, so that statements which were but memoranda or merely his way of formulating other men’s knowledge for his own convenience or for the sake of writing a pleasant letter to a friend, are given undue importance. ”

“ I show you the wrong side of events which history does not display: history exhibits only the right side. Memoirs have the advantage of presenting both surfaces of the texture: in this respect they depict the whole complexion of humanity better, by exposing, as in the tragedies of Shakespeare, low and exalted scenes. ”

“ In one of those books yonder there is the record of a case where a man, who had committed a series of nameless atrocities, extending over a period of years, absolutely kept a memorandum of them in his pocket diary. ”

“ There was a high pride in his complete lack of tenderness towards the evidence of past labour—the notes, manuscripts, memoranda that a man of letters usually accumulates and that shew him in the company of his work. ”

“ "A man who leaves memoirs, whether well or badly written, provided they be sincere, renders a service to future psychologists and writers, giving them not only a faithful picture, but likewise human documents that may be relied upon." ”

“ After having observed in a man and noted down one, two, three, and then a multitude of, sentiments, do these suffice and does your knowledge of him seem complete? Does a memorandum book constitute a psychology? It is not a psychology, and here, as elsewhere, the search for causes must follow the collection of facts. It matters not what the facts may be, whether physical or moral, they always spring from causes; there are causes for ambition, for courage, for veracity, as well as for digestion, for muscular action, and for animal heat. ”

“ For beyond writing materials and a tireless forearm there are in the manufacture of memoirs only two essentials: one must live during an interesting period of the world’s history and one must from time to time meet, or at the very least see, a variety of well-known persons. ”

“ It is difficult to know what to admire most—the clearness of perception, the precision of the statement, the strictness of the logic, the aptness of the illustration, or the argumentative skill with which the whole is marshalled and presented. As a piece of induction, the memoir is a model of its kind, and as an exercise in “the scientific use of the imagination” it has few equals. ”

“ Probably when we are thinking or talking of a person, we recall some visual image of that person. I have thought what an instructive thing it would be, if under some magic influence—like that, for example, which would construct a ‘palace of truth’—it were arranged that as we gave out our comments on the character or conduct of any person, this image on the retina of memory should change according to the truth, or rather the want of it, in our remarks. ”

“ The memory of having once examined and assented to each step of a demonstration, the authority of an approved writer, &c. are sufficient to gain our assent, though we understand no more than the import of the proposition; nay, even though we do not proceed so far as this. Now this is mere association again; this memory, authority, &c. being, in innumerable instances, associated with the before-mentioned coincidence of ideas and terms. ”

“ The amount of detailed information which an individual has at his command and his theoretical elaborations of the same are mutually dependent; they grow in and through each other. It is because of the indefinite and little specialised character of our knowledge that the theories concerning the processes of memory, reproduction, and association have been up to the present time of so little value for a proper comprehension of those processes. For example, to express our ideas concerning their physical basis we use different metaphors—stored up ideas, engraved images, well-beaten paths. ”

“ Memoranda is preferable when used collectively, but the English plural is better in such a phrase as ‘two different memorandums’. Automata, too, is sometimes collective; and lacuna always carries the suggestion of its classical meaning, which makes half the meaning of the word. So again, when the classical form is a scientific term, it is convenient and well to preserve its differentiation, e.g. ”

“ I read in your journal of the 25th instant, an article which announces an edition of my Memoirs, published in Germany, and in the German language. I did entrust the manuscript of my Reflections upon the Dramatic Art, and my own Memoirs, to a foreigner, and a man of letters, whom I greatly love and esteem. ”

“ A third advantage is, that to formulate an accurate generalisation may be useful to others: it is indeed part of the systematic procedure of science. The memoranda of our major premises, or reasons for believing anything, may be referred to by others, and either confirmed or refuted. When such a memorandum is used for further inferences, these inferences are said, in the language of Formal Logic, to be drawn from it, as if the conclusion were contained in our knowledge of the major premise ”

“ Moreover, as you read everything, every one comes to you for information, for an account of a newly published memoir which there is no time to read. It is much more convenient than to consult the library and also much safer, for errors of translation and interpretation are avoided. ”

“ Observations and remarks on various subjects will often be found as memorandums, made during or at the end of a sweep, to which the general index may serve as a direction—as for instance under the head of zodiacal lights—the index points out twelve different sweeps in which they were observed. ”

“ The faculty, by which we repeat our impressions in the first manner, is called the MEMORY, and the other the IMAGINATION. It is evident at first sight, that the ideas of the memory are much more lively and strong than those of the imagination, and that the former faculty paints its objects in more distinct colours, than any which are employed by the latter. When we remember any past event, the idea of it flows in upon the mind in a forcible manner ”

“ There can be no doubt that the faulty or varying versions of stories of modern origin are often ascribable to the neglect of immediate registration, and the subsequent oral or written repetition from memory. ”

“ That the characters lightly sketched in these Memoirs have been taken from life—i.e., that the ideas of them have been furnished by real personages—I in some measure candidly allow, though I have avoided making the portraits invidiously exact; as in a dream, busy fancy weaves a tissue of events out of the stored impressions of the brain, so, of course, the writer of a story must in like manner, though with more congruity, arrange and embody his scattered recollections, though not necessarily in the exact shape and order in which the objects, &c., originally presented themselves. ”

“ The way our group or class does things tends to determine the proper objects of attention, and thus to prescribe the directions and limits of observation and memory. ”

“ As will be easily recognized, the number and organization of associations are an important consideration. It is especially important to call attention to the fact that any attempt at verbatim memorization should follow a very careful thinking through of the whole selection to be memorized. An organization of the ideas in terms of that which is most important, and that which can be subordinated to these larger thoughts, a combination of method of learning by wholes and by parts, is involved. ”

“ Certainty comes with the means of control, and there is no controlling or testing memoirs without the contemporary document. Down to the middle of the century, private letters and official documents were rare. ”

“ After orienting ourselves thus concerning the nature and value of the numerical results gained from the complete memorisations, we shall now turn to the real purpose of the investigation, namely the numerical description of causal relations. ”

“ It is a good practice to make a memorandum of anything of which you may hear, but of which you know nothing, and then later to make a brief but thorough investigation of that thing, by means of the dictionary and encyclopedia, and of whatever good works may be obtained on the subject, not leaving it until you feel that you have obtained at least a clear idea of what the thing really means. ”

“ That wonderful Faculty, which we call the Memory, is perpetually looking back, when we have nothing present to entertain us. It is like those Repositories in several Animals, that are filled with Stores of their former Food, on which they may ruminate when their present Pasture fails. ”

“ It has always been my practice to cast a long paragraph in a single mould, to try it by my ear, to deposit it in my memory, but to suspend the action of the pen till I had given the last polish to my work. ”

“ The knowledge that I possessed much important information has exposed me to many inquiries, and wherever I have resided since my retirement from public affairs much of my time has been spent in replying to questions. The wish to be acquainted with the most minute details of the life of a man formed on an unexampled model is very natural; and the observation on my replies by those who heard them always was, "You should publish your Memoirs!" ”

“ For the subject of these Memoirs, a more universal sentiment is chosen—a sentiment hackneyed in this species of composition, consequently more difficult to treat with any degree of originality;—yet, to accomplish this, has been the aim of the author; with what success, the public will, probably, determine.
Every writer who advances principles, whether true or false, that have a tendency to set the mind in motion, does good. Innumerable mistakes have been made, both moral and philosophical:—while covered with a sacred and mysterious veil, how are they to be detected? ”

“ When we have attained certainty in our discoveries, they gradually become so verified that the memoirs, which originally brought the proofs, lose their value. Original memoirs are like digestive organs; they are filled with raw facts, which they prepare for assimilation, but to build the body of science these same facts must be absorbed and transmuted. ”

“ We have deliberately aimed at standards of maturity. The study of a mere narrative calls mainly for the use of the memory. We have aimed to stimulate habits of analysis, comparison, association, reflection, and generalization—habits calculated to enlarge as well as inform the mind. ”

“ keeping only a small memorandum-book in the breast-pocket, with its well-cut, sheathed pencil, ready for notes on passing opportunities: but never being without this. ”

“ Then, pause for a moment and ask yourselves of what other man whose written words have ever come into the fierce white glare of publication such statements as these could truthfully be made? Autobiographies, memoirs, journals, confessions, letters we have, of course, without number, and the value of these as human documents may in most cases be great, in some cases inestimable. ”

“ I had, also, during many years followed a golden rule, namely, that whenever a published fact, a new observation or thought came across me, which was opposed to my general results, to make a memorandum of it without fail and at once; for I had found by experience that such facts and thoughts were far more apt to escape from the memory than favourable ones. Owing to this habit, very few objections were raised against my views which I had not at least noticed and attempted to answer. ”

“ A series of brief, accurate memoranda, corrected daily, enables him to frame for himself a sort of psychological tablet whereon he notes down and sums up, in almost numerical valuation, the mental and moral dispositions, characters, faculties, passions, and aptitudes, the strong or weak points, of the innumerable human beings, near or remote, on whom he operates. ”

“ So, for example, a series of 16 syllables, which have been thoroughly memorised, may be present in a single conscious act. Accordingly this “explanation” is freely available. Those for whom it was of value in the case of association by simultaneity or immediate succession can employ it fully as well for our case of indirect sequence. ”