Quotes about forgetting
page 15

“I'll get an inspiration and start painting; then I'll forget everything, everything except how things used to be and how to paint it so people will know how we used to live.”

Grandma Moses (1860–1961) American artist

As quoted in her obituary in The New York Times (14 December 1961) http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/bday/0907.html

People, Painting

“All the things that happen and seem so important at the time, and yet you forget them, one after another.”

Thomas M. Disch (1940–2008) Novelist, short story writer, poet

Emancipation: A Romance of the Times to Come (1971)

Time

“We had no sooner taken our seats in the railway carriage and the train was beginning to move slowly out of the station when the guard came along the corridor and presented me with my viola! The porter had spotted it, reclining in its case all alone on the platform seat where Lillian and I had been busily engaged in conversation, run along the platform, and thrust it into the hands of the guard through the luggage van window as the train was moving off. Such was my absorption in Lillian that I could even forget the existence of my beloved and precious viola which had meant so much to me for so many years.”

Lionel Tertis (1876–1975) British musician

Lionel Tertis: "My Viola and I" http://www.erinartscentre.com/archive/galleries/tertis_gallery.html

Training

““Sometimes I wish I knew how to go crazy. I forget how.”
“It’s a lost art,” Hank said. “Maybe there’s an instruction manual on it.””

Philip K. Dick book A Scanner Darkly

Source: A Scanner Darkly (1977), Chapter 4 (p. 56)

Art

“Then all you lovers have good heed
Vex not young Love in word or deed:
Love never leaves an unpaid debt,
He will not pardon nor forget.”

Robert Graves (1895–1985) English poet and novelist

"Advice To Lovers".
Country Sentiment (1920)

Love, Lovers

“The desire to force others to bend or break to her will was always there, usually hidden deeply enough that she could forget she had that wish within her, but occasionally surfacing to dangle the ripe fruit of power just out of her reach. She knew, as few others did, that the power to coerce depended entirely on the fear or weakness of other human beings. It was possible to use coercion, yes, but in the end you found yourself surrounded only by the weak and fearful, with all those of courage and strength arrayed against you.”

Orson Scott Card (1951) American science fiction novelist

Source: The Tales of Alvin Maker, Heartfire (1998), Chapter 6.

Fear, Courage, Dependency

“Then he said something that was absolutely defining for him: "Write this down and never forget it: Love is as much a question of the will as it is of the emotion. And if you will to love somebody, you can."”

Ravi Zacharias (1946) Indian philosopher

[I, Isaac, Take Thee, Rebekah: Moving from Romance to Lasting Love, 2005, 9781418515812, http://books.google.com/books?id=lhWCB2v3UlQC&pg=PA29&dq=%22Love+is+as+much+a+question+of+the+will%22, 29]
quoting his brother
2000s

Love, Question

“The only place in London where one can forget that it is Sunday.”

Aubrey Beardsley (1872–1898) English illustrator and author

On the Brompton Oratory, in "Table Talk" p. 63.
Under the Hill and Other Essays (1904)

“It's easy to forget you are in debt to the tune of £10, and to a woman who never forgets anything. Crikey, she can even tell you which Coronation Street character was the first one to have their brain removed (Footnote: And not have it replaced by acting talent unfortunately.)”

Peter Corey (1946) British writer

Coping With series, Coping with Cash (2000)

“In my skeptical days, people who wanted to appear very spiritual were always telling me to forget my questions, to shove them under the rug and go on in "faith." In fact, some of my friends thought my questions were my own devices to dodge the "real issues." They thought I must be morally decadent to voice such questions. -Appalachian Melody.”

Mark Heard (1951–1992) American musician and record producer

Liner Notes

People, Faith, Question, Appearance

“There is an art in taking the whiplash of suffering full in the face, an art you must learn. Let each single attack exhaust itself; pain always makes single attacks, so that its bite may be more intense, more concentrated. And you, while its fangs are implanted and injecting their venom at one spot, do not forget to offer it another place where it can bite you, and so relieve the pain of the first.”

Cesare Pavese (1908–1950) Italian poet, novelist, literary critic, and translator

This Business of Living (1935-1950)

Pain, Art, Suffering, Learning

“The late Mr. [Carl] Sandburg was a public performer of the first rank ("Ker-oh-seen!" he crooned in one of the first TV pitches for the jet-engine — ole banjo on his knee, white hair mussed by the jet-stream), a poet of the second rank (who can ever forget that feline-footed fog?) and a biographer of awesome badness.”

Gore Vidal (1925–2012) American writer

"First Note on Abraham Lincoln"
1990s, United States - Essays 1952-1992 (1992)

“I am the entertainer and I know just where I stand
Another serenader and another long haired band
Today I am your champion, I may have won your hearts,
But I know the game, you'll forget my name,
And I won't be here in another year
If I don't stay on the charts.”

Billy Joel (1949) American singer-songwriter and pianist

The Entertainer.
Song lyrics, Streetlife Serenade (1974)

Game, Heart

“All those who support her continued detention, anyone who is silent while she remains in jail, and all those who make her detention possible are saying: Forget democracy. That’s not what we are. Get used to it.”

Gideon Levy (1953) Israeli journalist

In a Democracy, Palestinian Lawmaker Khalida Jarrar Would Be Free (June 21, 2018)

Democracy, Support

“No, what worries me is that I might in a sense adapt to this environment and come to be comfortable here and not resent it anymore. And I am afraid that as the years go by that I may forget, I may begin to lose my memories of the mountains and the woods and that's what really worries me, that I might lose those memories, and lose that sense of contact with wild nature in general. But I am not afraid they are going to break my spirit.”

Theodore Kaczynski (1942) American domestic terrorist, mathematician and anarchist

Answer given when he was asked if he was afraid of losing his mind in prison. Interview with Ted Kaczynski http://web.archive.org/web/20061003044754/www.spiritoffreedom.org.uk/profiles/ted.html Interviews

Mountain, Nature, Sense, Memory

“The whole subject of the liquidity trap has a sort of Alice-through-the-looking glass quality. Virtues like saving, or a central bank known to be strongly committed to price stability, become vices; to get out of the trap a country must loosen its belt, persuade its citizens to forget about the future, and convince the private sector that the government and central bank aren’t as serious and austere as they seem.”

Paul Krugman (1953) American economist

"Thinking About the Liquidity Trap", Journal of the Japanese and International Economies (2000)

Future, Country

“That is to say, within less than twenty years after the Constitution was formed, and in obedience to that general opinion of the time which condemned slavery as a sin in morals and a blunder in economy, eight of the States had abolished it by law — four of them having already done so when the instrument was framed; and Mr. Douglas might as justly quote the fact that there were slaves in New York up to 1827 as proof that the public opinion of the State sanctioned slavery, as to try to make an argument of the fact that there were slave laws upon the statute-books of the original States. He forgets that there was not in all the colonial legislation of America one single law which recognized the rightfulness of slavery in the abstract; that in 1774 Virginia stigmatized the slave-trade as 'wicked, cruel, and unnatural'; that in the same year Congress protested against it 'under the sacred ties of virtue, honor, and love of country'; that in 1775 the same Congress denied that God intended one man to own another as a slave; that the new Discipline of the Methodist Church, in 1784, and the Pastoral Letter of the Presbyterian Church, in 1788, denounced slavery; that abolition societies existed in slave States, and that it was hardly the interest even of the cotton-growing States, where it took a slave a day to clean a pound of cotton, to uphold the system. Mr. Douglas incessantly forgets to tell us that Jefferson, in his address to the Virginia Legislature of 1774, says that 'the abolition of domestic slavery is the greatest object of desire in these colonies, where it was unhappily introduced in their infant state'; and while he constantly remembers to remind us that the Jeffersonian prohibition of slavery in the territories was lost in 1784, he forgets to add that it was lost, not by a majority of votes — for there were sixteen in its favor to seven against it — but because the sixteen votes did not represent two thirds of the States; and he also incessantly forgets to tell us that this Jeffersonian prohibition was restored by the Congress of 1785, and erected into the famous Northwest Ordinance of 1787, which was re-enacted by the first Congress of the United States and approved by the first President.”

George William Curtis (1824–1892) American writer

1850s, The Present Aspect of the Slavery Question (1859)

Love, God, Books, Law

“I was sorry to see the News of the World go down, I think it was a great campaigning newspaper. Who can forget the News of the World's high profile campaign against child sex offenders which led to News of the World readers burning down the home of a paediatrician, throwing rocks at a pedalo, stamping on a centipede.”

Stewart Lee (1968) English stand-up comedian, writer, director and musician

Carpet Remnant World

World, Sex, Home, Thinking

“The honourable gentleman has alluded to the distresses and financial embarrassments of the country. I should be the last man to speak of those distresses in a slighting manner; but in considering the amount of our burdens, we ought not to forget under what circumstances those difficulties have been incurred. Engaged in an arduous struggle, single-handed and unaided, not only against all the powers of Europe, but with the confederated forces of the civilized world, our object was not merely military glory—not the temptation of territorial acquisition—not even what might be considered a more justifiable object, the assertion of violated rights and the vindication of national honour; but we were contending for our very existence as an independent nation. When the political horizon was thus clouded, when no human foresight could point out from what quarter relief was to be expected, when the utmost effort of national energy was not to despair, I would put to the honourable gentleman whether, if at that period it could have been shown that Europe might be delivered from its thraldom, but that this contingent must be purchased at the price of a long and patient endurance of our domestic burdens, we should not have accepted the conditions with gratitude? I lament as deeply as the honourable gentleman the burdens of the country; but it should be recollected that they were the price which we bad agreed to pay for our freedom and independence.”

Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (1784–1865) British politician

Speech in the House of Commons (16 May 1820), quoted in George Henry Francis, Opinions and Policy of the Right Honourable Viscount Palmerston, G.C.B., M.P., &c. as Minister, Diplomatist, and Statesman, During More Than Forty Years of Public Life (London: Colburn and Co., 1852), pp. 15-16.
1820s

World, Effort, Freedom, Despair

“How prudently most men creep into nameless graves, while now and then one or two forget themselves into immortality.”

Phillips Brooks (1835–1893) American clergyman and author

Actually said by Wendell Phillips, on the murder of Elijah Parish Lovejoy, which occurred on November 7, 1837.
Misattributed

Men

“Discussion groups tend to keep covering the same ground over and over again, because people forget what was said before. I think the invention of the Frequently Asked Questions, the FAQ, was a response to that. A lot of times just reading the FAQ is more valuable than joining the discussion group.”

Ward Cunningham (1949) American computer programmer who developed the first wiki

A Conversation with Ward Cunningham (2003), Exploring with Wiki

People, Question, Thinking, Time

“In relations with others, one should express resentment and anger openly and straightforwardly. If one cannot express them openly and straightforwardly, the only thing to do is forget about them. To harbor grievances in one's heart, awaiting some later opportunity to give vent to them, is to act like a weak and petty man-in truth, it can only be called cowardice. The mind of the superior man is like Heaven. When it is resentful or angry, it thunders forth its indignation. But once having loosed its feelings, it is like a sunny day with a clear sky: within the heart there remains not the trace of a cloud. Such is the beauty of true manliness.”

Yoshida Shoin (1830–1859) Japanese politician

Vol. III.
Yoshida Shoin Zenshu

Truth, Beauty, Feeling, Heart

“We have seen our discourse degraded by casual cruelty. At times, it can seem like the forces pulling us apart are stronger than the forces binding us together. Argument turns too easily into animosity. Disagreement escalates into dehumanization. Too often, we judge other groups by their worst examples while judging ourselves by our best intentions – forgetting the image of God we should see in each other. We’ve seen nationalism distorted into nativism – forgotten the dynamism that immigration has always brought to America. We see a fading confidence in the value of free markets and international trade – forgetting that conflict, instability, and poverty follow in the wake of protectionism. We have seen the return of isolationist sentiments – forgetting that American security is directly threatened by the chaos and despair of distant places, where threats such as terrorism, infectious disease, criminal gangs and drug trafficking tend to emerge. In all these ways, we need to recall and recover our own identity. Americans have a great advantage: To renew our country, we only need to remember our values.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

2010s, 2017, Speech at "Spirit of Liberty: At Home, In the World" event (2017)

God, Disease, Way, Confidence

“I guess I’ll do what everyone else does: get on with my life and forget the big questions.”

Alastair Reynolds book Century Rain

Source: Century Rain (2004), Chapter 41 (p. 606)

Life, Question

“A pig never forgets, Ryan. They actually are pretty smart, I think, pigs. They can play pong or something.”

Gavin Free (1988) English filmmaker

"Let's Play Minecraft - Episode 91 - Darwin Awards" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3moj3zGYzk. youtube.com. February 21, 2014. Retrieved January 3, 2016.

Thinking

“The point to be made clear is that, whatever may be our temperament, or our power in the presence of nature, we have to render what we actually see, forgetting everything that appeared before our own time. Which, I think, should enable the artist to express his personality to the full, be it large or small. Now that I am an old man, about seventy, the sensations of colour which produce light give rise to abstractions that prevent me from covering my canvas, and from trying to define the outlines of objects when their points of contact are tenuous and delicate; with the result that my image or picture is incomplete. For another thing, the planes become confused, superimposed; hence Neo-Impressionism (initiated by Seurat and Paul Signac, ed., where everything is outlined in black, an error which must be uncompromisingly rejected. And nature, if consulted, shows us how to achieve this aim.”

Paul Cézanne (1839–1906) French painter

Quote from Cézanne's letter to Émile Bernard, 23 October 1905; as quoted in Letters of the great artists – from Blake to Pollock, Richard Friedenthal, Thames and Hudson, London, 1963, p. 180
Quotes of Paul Cezanne, after 1900

Error, Nature, Thinking, Light

“I must say that when my Southern Christian Leadership Conference began its work in Birmingham, we encountered numerous Negro church reactions that had to be overcome. Negro ministers were among other Negro leaders who felt they were being pulled into something that they had not helped to organize. This is almost always a problem. Negro community unity was the first requisite if our goals were to be realized. I talked with many groups, including one group of 200 ministers, my theme to them being that a minister cannot preach the glories of heaven while ignoring social conditions in his own community that cause men an earthly hell. I stressed that the Negro minister had particular freedom and independence to provide strong, firm leadership, and I asked how the Negro would ever gain freedom without his minister's guidance, support and inspiration. These ministers finally decided to entrust our movement with their support, and as a result, the role of the Negro church today, by and large, is a glorious example in the history of Christendom. For never in Christian history, within a Christian country, have Christian churches been on the receiving end of such naked brutality and violence as we are witnessing here in America today. Not since the days of the Christians in the catacombs has God's house, as a symbol, weathered such attack as the Negro churches.
I shall never forget the grief and bitterness I felt on that terrible September morning when a bomb blew out the lives of those four little, innocent girls sitting in their Sunday-school class in the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham. I think of how a woman cried out, crunching through broken glass, "My God, we're not even safe in church!" I think of how that explosion blew the face of Jesus Christ from a stained-glass window. It was symbolic of how sin and evil had blotted out the life of Christ. I can remember thinking that if men were this bestial, was it all worth it? Was there any hope? Was there any way out?… time has healed the wounds -- and buoyed me with the inspiration of another moment which I shall never forget: when I saw with my own eyes over 3000 young Negro boys and girls, totally unarmed, leave Birmingham's 16th Street Baptist Church to march to a prayer meeting -- ready to pit nothing but the power of their bodies and souls against Bull Connor's police dogs, clubs and fire hoses. When they refused Connor's bellowed order to turn back, he whirled and shouted to his men to turn on the hoses. It was one of the most fantastic events of the Birmingham story that these Negroes, many of them on their knees, stared, unafraid and unmoving, at Connor's men with the hose nozzles in their hands. Then, slowly the Negroes stood up and advanced, and Connor's men fell back as though hypnotized, as the Negroes marched on past to hold their prayer meeting. I saw there, I felt there, for the first time, the pride and the power of nonviolence.
Another time I will never forget was one Saturday night, late, when my brother telephoned me in Atlanta from Birmingham -- that city which some call "Bombingham" -- which I had just left. He told me that a bomb had wrecked his home, and that another bomb, positioned to exert its maximum force upon the motel room in which I had been staying, had injured several people. My brother described the terror in the streets as Negroes, furious at the bombings, fought whites. Then, behind his voice, I heard a rising chorus of beautiful singing: "We shall overcome."”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

Tears came into my eyes that at such a tragic moment, my race still could sing its hope and faith. Interview in Playboy (January 1965) https://web.archive.org/web/20080706183244/http://www.playboy.com/arts-entertainment/features/mlk/04.html 1960s

Life, Men, God, People

“It only takes a split second to smile and forget, yet to someone that needed it, it can last a lifetime. We should all smile more often.”

Steve Maraboli (1975)

Source: Life, the Truth, and Being Free (2010), p. 80

Smile

“Forget that foreign word "ideals." We have that good old native word: "lies."”

Henrik Ibsen The Wild Duck

Relling, Act V
The Wild Duck (1884)

“No funeral gloom, my dears, when I am gone,
corpse-gazing, tears, black raiment, graveyard grimness.
Think of me as withdrawn into the dimness,
yours still, you mine.
Remember all the best of our past moments,
and forget the rest;
and so to where I wait, come gently on.”

William Allingham (1824–1889) Irish man of letters and poet

Poem: No funeral gloom - part of funeral of actress Ellen Terry 1928.

Thinking, Tear, Waiting, Past

“Those who look for contradictions will be amply satisfied. The profession of a performer is full of paradoxes, and he has to learn to live with them. He has to forget himself and control himself; he has to observe the composer's wishes to the letter and create the music on the spot; he has to be part of the music market and yet retain his integrity.”

Alfred Brendel (1931) Austrian pianist, poet, and author

Alfred Brendel (1976), as cited in: Benny Shanon (2013). The Representational and the Presentational. p. 380.

Music, Learning, Parting

“There must be no premature renunciation, physical or emotional. The heart, like the body, needs exercise. Naturally there can be no deliberate stirring up of emotion, but why, merely for reasons of age, should one deny oneself those that can be genuinely experienced? Because old men in love are ridiculous? They are ridiculous only if they forget that they are old men. There is nothing ridiculous about two old people really in love. Each still finds in the other those qualities which were admired in youth. Tender consideration, affection, and admiration have no age. In fact, it often happens that, when youth and its passions have vanished, love takes on an asceticism which is delightful. Sensual misunderstandings disappear with physical desire and jealousy with youth; impetuosity wanes with the body's strength. From the remnants of a stormy youth may be created an agreeable old age. Thus the existence of a couple resembles a river which leaps dangerously over jagged rocks near its source, but whose clear waters flow more slowly as it approaches the sea, its broad surface reflecting the poplars along its banks and the stars at night.”

André Maurois (1885–1967) French writer

Un Art de Vivre (The Art of Living) (1939), The Art of Growing Old

Love, Men, People, Youth

“And make up your mind about what bloody race you belong to. One minute it’s all about being a farmer’s boy in Northamptonshire and the next you’re on about the old days in Calcutta and what the British have done to Mother India and the snake-charmers and the bloody temple-bells. Ah, wake up, for God’s sake. You’re English right enough but you’re forgetting how to speak the bloody language, what with traipsing about with Punjabis and Sikhs and God knows what. You talk Hindustani in your sleep, man. Sort it out, for God’s sake. If you want to put a loincloth on, get cracking, but don’t expect the privileges --’ (the word came out in a wet blurr; the needle stuck for a couple of grooves) ‘the privileges, the privileges…”

Anthony Burgess (1917–1993) English writer

Fiction, Time for a Tiger (1956)

God, Boy, Sleep

“When will my soul forget the look
With which one single stem she took
From out the wreath?—a tulip flower;
But, touch'd as by some withering power,
The painted leaves were drooping round
The rich but burning heart they bound.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

The Golden Violet - The Wreath
The Golden Violet (1827)

Soul, Flowers, Heart, Painting

“As you open up spiritually, your subtle body has a particular effulgence which attracts entities from both the divine and negative natures. You become more sensitive and aware of everything. You become more intuitive and have more experiences in the dream state. If there are messages you should receive, the impressions will always be there, even when you are asleep, and you will act on them without consciously being aware of it. If a communication is really meant for your growth, even though you may forget it or may not be able to understand its significance, it will still have an effect on your consciousness. Ultimately, both the positive and negative experiences are “quality tests” to assess your level of sincerity.”

Bhakti Tirtha Swami (1950–2005) American Hindu writer

Source: Books, Spiritual Warrior, Volume I: Uncovering Spiritual Truths in Psychic Phenomena (Hari-Nama Press, 1996), Chapter 1: Dreams: A State of Reality, p. 21

Dreams, Communication, Understanding, Nature

“My book is written, as befits such easy material, in merciless telegram style ("Axiom," "Definition," "Theorem," "Proof," occasionally "Preliminary Remark")… I hope I have written this book in such a way that a normal student can read it in two days. And then (since he already knows the formal rules from school) he may forget its contents.”

Edmund Landau (1877–1938) German Jewish mathematician

Grundlagen der Analysis [Foundations of Analysis] (1930) Preface for the Teacher, as quoted by Eli Maor, Trigonometric Delights (2013)

Books, School, Hope, Way

“Words are everything and don't you forget it, ever.”

Ralph Ellison book Three Days Before the Shooting...

Source: Three Days Before the Shooting... (2010), p. 251.

“God's Torah teaches us to refrain from inflicting unnecessary pain on any animal. And not only physical pain; an animal can suffer mental pain too. … It is an important part of Torah education to train children to respect animals as sensitive beings which should not be unnecessarily deprived of the joys of life. Do not forget that the child who crudely delights in the suffering of an injured beetle or the anxiety of a harassed animal will soon be numb towards human pain too. … It seems doubtful from all that has been said whether the Torah would sanction "factory farming," which treats animals as machines, with apparent insensitivity to their natural needs and instincts.”

Aryeh Carmell (1917–2006) British rabbi

Masterplan: Judaism, Its Program, Meanings and Goals (Jerusalem: Feldheim, 1991), pp. 68 https://books.google.it/books?id=uQxdgZikdCcC&pg=PA68-69.

Life, God, Pain, Children

“It has often occurred to my mind in digesting my thoughts on this subject, what a pity it is that this most useful science should be so generally neglected in the modern methods of education; and that preceptors and tutors, both in public and private seminaries of learning, should forget that the forming the manners is more necessary to a finished education than furnishing the minds of youth. Socrates, who made all his philosophy subservient to morality, was of this sentiment: and took more pains to rectify the tempers than replenish the understandings of his pupils; and looked upon all knowledge as useless speculation that was not brought to this end, to make us wiser and better men. And, without doubt, if in the academy the youth has once happily learned the great art of managing his temper, governing his passions, and guarding his foibles, he will find a more solid advantage from it in afterlife, than he could expect from the best acquaintance with all the systems of ancient and modern philosophy.”

John Mason (1706–1763) English Independent minister and author

A Treatise on Self-Knowledge (1745)

Men, Pain, Youth, Education

“We've got to take the neighborhood back. We've got to go in there. Just forget telling your child to go to the Peace Corps. It's right around the corner. It's standing on the corner. It can't speak English. It doesn't want to speak English. I can't even talk the way these people talk. "Why you ain't where you is go." I don't know who these people are. And I blamed the kid until I heard the mother talk. Then I heard the father talk. This is all in the house. You used to talk a certain way on the corner and you got into the house and switched to English. Everybody knows it's important to speak English except these knuckleheads. You can't land a plane with "why you ain't…". You can't be a doctor with that kind of crap coming out of your mouth. There is no Bible that has that kind of language. Where did these people get the idea that they're moving ahead on this? Well, they know they're not, they're just hanging out in the same place, five or six generations sitting in the projects when you're just supposed to stay there long enough to get a job and move out.”

Bill Cosby (1937) American actor, comedian, author, producer, musician, activist

"Dr Bill Cosby Speaks at the 50th Anniversary commemoration of the Brown vs Topeka Board of Education Supreme Court Decision," known as the "Pound Cake" speech (May 2004).

People, Peace, Way, Idea

“I think people tend to forget that as celebrities we are still human. We have the same emotions - we cry, we have fun, we laugh, we get sad, and we get hurt. When something is written about you, which millions of people are reading, and it is not true, imagine how hurtful it can be.”

Sania Mirza (1986) Indian tennis player

Source: Garima Sharma My husband is very calm and that is very annoying, says Sania Mirza http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/sports/tennis/interviews/My-husband-is-very-calm-and-that-is-very-annoying-says-Sania-Mirza/articleshow/17533676.cms, The Times of India, 8 December 2012

People, Sadness, Imagination, Thinking

“The country will absorb you and you will cease to be Victor Crabbe. You will less and less find it possible to do the work for which you were sent here. You will lose function and identity. You will be swallowed up and become another kind of eccentric. You may become a Muslim. You may forget your English, or at least lose your English accent. You may end in a kampong, no longer a foreigner, an old brownish man with many wives and children, one of the elders whom the young will be encouraged to consult on matters of the heart. You will be ruined.”

Anthony Burgess (1917–1993) English writer

Fiction, Time for a Tiger (1956)

Children, Heart, Country

“3387. Men apt to promise, are apt to forget.”

Thomas Fuller (writer) (1654–1734) British physician, preacher, and intellectual

Introductio ad prudentiam: Part II (1727), Gnomologia (1732)

Men

“Moreover, if we believe, as I do, that God's grace is extended to those who die in infancy or as small children, the death of these children was actually their salvation. We are so wedded to an earthly, naturalistic perspective that we forget that those who die are happy to quit this earth for heaven's incomparable joy. Therefore, God does these children no wrong in taking their lives.
So whom does God wrong in commanding the destruction of the Canaanites? Not the Canaanite adults, for they were corrupt and deserving of judgment. Not the children, for they inherit eternal life. So who is wronged? Ironically, I think the most difficult part of this whole debate is the apparent wrong done to the Israeli soldiers themselves. Can you imagine what it would be like to have to break into some house and kill a terrified woman and her children? The brutalising effect on these Israeli soldiers is disturbing.”

William Lane Craig book Reasonable Faith

[Subject: Slaughter of the Canaanites, Reasonable Faith, http://www.reasonablefaith.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=5767, 2011-10-20], quoted in [Why I refuse to debate with William Lane Craig, Richard, Dawkins, Guardian, 2011-10-20, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/oct/20/richard-dawkins-william-lane-craig, 2011-10-20]

Life, Death, God, Happiness

“A leopard doesn't change his spots just because you bring him in from the jungle and try to housebreak him and turn him into a pet. He may learn to sheathe his claws in order to beg a few scraps off the dinner table, and you may teach him to be a beast of burden, but it doesn't pay to forget that he'll always be what he was born: a wild animal.”

George Lincoln Rockwell (1918–1967) American politician, founder of the American Nazi Party

Interview with Alex Haley

Learning, Change, Animals

“Though deepest dark our efforts should enfold,
Unwearied mine to find the vein of gold;
Forget not oft to lift the hope on high;
The rosy dawn again shall fill the sky.

And by that lovely light, all truth-revealed,
The cherished forms which sad distrust concealed,
Transfigured, yet the same, will round us stand,
The kindred angels of a faithful band;
Ruby and ebon cross both cast aside,
No lamp is needed, for the night has died.”

Margaret Fuller (1810–1850) American feminist, poet, author, and activist

Life Without and Life Within (1859), Sub Rosa, Crux

Love, Truth, Sadness, Faith

“People mistake it for a guy's name or a nick name. Gift is my real name and that is where I got the G in Muma Gee, forget the fact that I added double ‘e’ to it, just as it sounds Gee but the G is just the G in Gift. For the Muma, the Jamaicans will call mother Muma and papa Pupa. The Muma in my name means 'do good' in my language.”

Muma Gee (1978) Nigerian singer and songwriter

In " I am single, apply within – Muma Gee http://www.nigeriafilms.com/content.asp?contentid=3376&ContentTypeID=2" by Funmi Salome Johnson on nigeriafilms.com, October 25, 2008: On the meaning behind her stage name

People, Guy

“Young men soon give and soon forget affronts;
Old age is slow in both.”

Joseph Addison book Cato

Act II, scene v.
Cato, A Tragedy (1713)

Men, Age

“The psycho-analyst infers the monstrous and abnormal from a trifle; it is often safe to reverse the process. If a man dreams that he has committed a sin before which the sun hid his face, it is often safe to conjecture that, in sheer forgetfulness, he wore a red tie, or brown boots with evening dress.”

Arthur Machen (1863–1947) Welsh author and mystic

"The Children of the Pool", in The Children of the Pool and Other Stories (New York: Arno Press, [1936] 1976) p. 83.

Dreams, Sun

“Forget whatever should be forgotten, so that you can remember what should be remembered.”

Bing Xin (1900–1999) Chinese writer

China Daily (English Edition), obituary (1999)

“Remember this moment. If we don't convince the field marshal (Fedor von Bock) to fly to Hitler at once and have these orders (Commissar Order) canceled, the German people will be burdened with a guilt the world will not forget in a hundred years. This guilt will fall not only on Hitler, Himmler, Göring, and their comrades but on you and me, your wife and mine, your children and mine, that woman crossing the street, and those children over there playing ball.”

Henning von Tresckow (1901–1944) German general

1941. Fest, Joachim. Plotting Hitler's Death, 175
Robert Kane, Disobedience and Conspiracy in the German Army, 1918-1945, p. 163.

Children, People, World, Flying

“The Christians mistake an incident for a cause, and honestly imagine that the Bible is the foundation of modern liberty and law. They forget physical conditions, make no account of commerce, care nothing for inventions and discoveries, and ignorantly give the credit to their inspired book.”

Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer

Orthodoxy (1884)

Books, Law, Imagination

“A Frenchman is self-assured because he regards himself personally, both in mind and body, as irresistibly attractive to men and women. An Englishman is self-assured, as being a citizen of the best-organized state in the world, and therefore as an Englishman always knows what he should do and knows that all he does as an Englishman is undoubtedly correct. An Italian is self-assured because he is excitable and easily forgets himself and other people. A Russian is self-assured just because he knows nothing and does not want to know anything, since he does not believe that anything can be known. The German's self-assurance is worst of all, stronger and more repulsive than any other, because he imagines that he knows the truth — science — which he himself has invented but which is for him the absolute truth.”

Leo Tolstoy book War and Peace

Bk. IX, ch. 10
War and Peace (1865–1867; 1869)

Women, Men, People, Truth

“"A curse," said Lee. "Been in our family for generations. The Lees have always been perverts. I shall never forget the unspeakable horror that froze the lymph in my glands when the baneful word seared my reeling brain: 'homosexual'. I was a homosexual. I thought of the painted simpering female impersonators I'd seen in a Baltimore nightclub. Could it be possible I was one of those subhuman things? I walked the streets in a daze like a man with a light concussion- just a minute, Doctore Kildare, this isn't your script. I might as well have destroyed myself, ending an existence which seemed to offer nothing but grotesque misery and humiliation. Nobler, I thought to die a man than life on, a sex monster. It was a wise old queen - Bob, we called her- who taught me that I had a duty to live and to bear my burden proudly for all to see, to conquer prejudice and ignorance and hate with knowledge and sincerity and love. Whenever you are threatened by a hostile presence, you emit a thick cloud of love like an octopus squirts out ink."”

William S. Burroughs (1914–1997) American novelist, short story writer, essayist, painter, and spoken word performer

Source: Queer: A Novel (1985), Chapter Three

Love, Life, Hate, Hostility

“Truth of it is,’ said Commander Haydock, steering rather erratically round a one-way island and narrowly missing collision with a large van, ‘when the beggars are right, one remembers it, and when they’re wrong you forget it.”

Agatha Christie book N or M?

N or M? (1941)

Truth, Way

“Why so negative?' says the spider to the fly. 'Be objective, forget your prejudices'. But there is no way the fly can be objective, however much she may want to be: 'to look at the web objectively, from the outside - what a dream', muses the fly, 'what an empty, deceptive dream'…. Any study of the web that does not start from the fly's entrapment in it is quite simply untrue.”

John Holloway book Change the World Without Taking Power

Change the World Without Taking Power (2002)

Dreams, Way, Study, Flying

“Why is it so hard to keep the mind concentrated, and to live up to our good resolutions? The problem is the basically mechanical nature of our left-brain consciousness. We have a kind of robot servant who does things for us: we learn to type or drive a car, painfully and consciously, then our robot takes over, and does it far more quickly and efficiently. Because man is the most complex creature on Earth, he is forced to rely on his robot far more than other animals. The result is that, whenever he gets tired, the robot takes over. For the modern city dweller, most of his everyday living is done by the robot. This is why it takes an emergency to concentrate the mind 'wonderfully', and why we forget so quickly.”

Colin Wilson (1931–2013) author

Source: Alien Dawn (1998), p. 344

Cars, Nature, Problem, Learning

“What sustains us in any competition are the moments of interiority when the competition vanishes; what sustains us in any struggle are the moments when we forget the struggle.”

Adam Gopnik (1956) American journalist

How to Raise a Prodigy, The New Yorker (2018)

“Ambition breaks the ties of blood, and forgets the obligations of gratitude.”

Sallust (-86–-34 BC) Roman historian, politician

The earliest attributions of this yet found are to it being a saying of William Scott, 1st Baron Stowell, in History of the Anti-Corn Law League (1853), by Archibald Prentice, p. 54; around 1876 it began to began to be cited to W. Scott, and then around 1880 sometimes to Walter Scott, but without citations of source, including a variant: "Selfish ambition breaks the ties of blood, and forgets the obligations of gratitude" in a publication of 1907. It seems to only recently to have begun to be attributed to Sallust, on the internet.
Misattributed

Gratitude

“It would be difficult Bland thought, to forget Hercule Poirot, and this not entirely for complimentary reasons.”

Agatha Christie book Dead Man's Folly

Dead Man's Folly (1956)

“Democracy, it is quite true, has been a failure in many countries, but let me put this idea before you. Democracy was grafted in those countries on a stem of Absolutism, and the graft does not do well. It is not a natural growth, and in many countries Democracy blundered into chaos…But for us to surrender our liberty would indeed be to graft something completely alien on to the stem of an old oak. Do not forget, in spite of what is happening abroad, there are freedom-loving men and women in every country to-day in Europe. And you cannot think what anxiety they are looking to this country to-day as the last stronghold of freedom, standing like a rock in a tide that is threatening to submerge the world.”

Stanley Baldwin (1867–1947) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Broadcast from London (6 March 1934); published in This Torch of Freedom (1935), p. 23
1934

Love, Women, Men, World

“It is especially easy in our time to forget others, largely because of the conditions in modern society.”

Robert Hunter (author) (1874–1942) American sociologist, author, golf course architect

Source: Why We Fail as Christians (1919), p. 22

Time

“It can be stated as a sober fact that the iron-heel attitude has already reduced by half the ability of Wisconsin to support a cooperative community of men, animals, and plants during the next century. Moreover, it has saddled us with a repair bill, the magnitude of which we are just beginning to appreciate. If some foreign invader attempted such loot, the whole nation would resist to the last man and the last dollar. But as long as we loot ourselves, we charge the indignity to 'rugged individualism', and try to forget it.”

Aldo Leopold (1887–1948) American writer and scientist

"The Arboretum and the University" [1934]; Published in The River of the Mother of God and Other Essays by Aldo Leopold, Susan L. Flader and J. Baird Callicott (eds.) 1991, p. 210.
1930s

Men, Communication, Support, Animals

“There could have been no more complete answer than that silence, and Lydgate, forgetting everything else, completely mastered by the outrush of tenderness at the sudden belief that this sweet young creature depended on him for her joy, actually put his arms round her, folding her gently and protectingly— he was used to being gentle with the weak and suffering—and kissed each of the two large tears. This was a strange way of arriving at an understanding, but it was a short way.”

George Eliot book Middlemarch

Middlemarch (1871)

Way, Understanding, Kiss, Tear

“The Communists have created the illusion in free men's minds that "the way to peace is through disarmament." We must not forget that this originated as a Communist slogan. Now free men have adopted it as their own and are even setting up special commissions to explore ways and means to carry it out. In this action we are deliberately closing our eyes to everything we promised ourselves at the close of World War II and again at the end of the Korean War. Experts tell us that to disarm in the face of an obvious and present danger is an immoral act. It is an act of self-destruction.”

W. Cleon Skousen book The Naked Communist

The Naked Communist (1958)

Men, War, World, Peace

“Oh, I have roamed o'er many lands,
And many friends I've met;
Not one fair scene or kindly smile
Can this fond heart forget.”

Thomas Haynes Bayly (1797–1839) English poet, songwriter, dramatist, and writer

Oh, steer my Bark to Erin's Isle, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Smile, Heart

“We should never forget that values of the past are first overlooked when a change is necessary, but later they are understood and re-established.”

Constantinos Apostolou Doxiadis (1914–1975) Greek architect

Source: Building Entopia - 1975, Chapter 7, The room , p. 98

Change, Past

“No, the heart that has truly lov'd never forgets,
But as truly loves on to the close;
As the sunflower turns on her god when he sets
The same look which she turn'd when he rose.”

Thomas Moore (1779–1852) Irish poet, singer and songwriter

Believe me, if all those endearing young Charms.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
Variant: No, the heart that has truly lov'd never forgets,
But as truly loves on to the close;
As the sunflower turns on her god when he sets
The same look which she turn'd when he rose.

Love, God, Flowers, Sun

“My canvas soothes me into forgetfulness of the scene of turmoil and folly — and worse — of the scene around me. Every gleam of sunshine is blighted to me in the art at least. Can it therefore be wondered at that I paint continual storms? "Tempest o'er tempest roll'd"”

John Constable (1776–1837) English Romantic painter

still the "darkness" is majestic.
Letter to C.R. Leslie (1834), John Constable's Correspondence, ed. R.B. Beckett, (Ipswich, Suffolk Records Society, 1962-1970), vol. 3, p. 122; also quoted in Hugh Honour, Romanticism (Westview Press, 1979, ISBN 0-064-30089-7, ch. 3, p. 91
1830s

Art, Painting

“Once you’ve married, be strict but just with your wife, don’t allow her to forget herself, and when a misunderstanding arises, say: “Don’t forget that I made you happy.””

Anton Chekhov (1860–1904) Russian dramatist, author and physician

Guide for Those Wishing to Marry (1885)

Happiness

“If some really acute observer made as much of egotism as Freud has made of sex, people would forget a good deal about sex and find the explanation for everything in egotism.”

Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) American poet

Letter (10 January 1936); as published in Letters of Wallace Stevens (1966) edited by Holly Stevens, (No. 339)

People, Sex

“The essential is the object. Error consists in forgetting that grain, cotton, wool are vital objects and in being interested in them only because of their value in gold, their speculative value. The economic purpose is not 'to make millionaires out of gasoline' but to distribute gasoline according to demand and need. [Wall street] is an abstraction.”

Fernand Léger (1881–1955) French painter

Quote from exhibition catalogue, John Becker Gallery, New York, March 1933
Quotes of Fernand Leger, 1930's

Error

“Thou has left behind
Powers that will work for thee,—air, earth, and skies!
There 's not a breathing of the common wind
That will forget thee; thou hast great allies;
Thy friends are exultations, agonies,
And love, and man's unconquerable mind.”

William Wordsworth (1770–1850) English Romantic poet

To Toussaint L'Ouverture, l. 12 (1807).

Love

“Beyond the cloud-wrapt chambers of western gloom and Aethiopia's other realm there stands a motionless grove, impenetrable by any star; beneath it the hollow recesses of a deep and rocky cave run far into a mountain, where the slow hand of Nature has set the halls of lazy Sleep and his untroubled dwelling. The threshold is guarded by shady Quiet and dull Forgetfulness and torpid Sloth with ever drowsy countenance. Ease, and Silence with folded wings sit mute in the forecourt and drive the blustering winds from the roof-top, and forbid the branches to sway, and take away their warblings from the birds. No roar of the sea is here, though all the shores be sounding, nor yet of the sky; the very torrent that runs down the deep valley nigh the cave is silent among the rocks and boulders; by its side are sable herds, and sheep reclining one and all upon the ground; the fresh buds wither, and a breath from the earth makes the grasses sink and fail. Within, glowing Mulciber had carved a thousand likenesses of the god: here wreathed Pleasure clings to his side, here Labour drooping to repose bears him company, here he shares a couch with Bacchus, there with Love, the child of Mars. Further within, in the secret places of the palace he lies with Death also, but that dread image is seen by none. These are but pictures: he himself beneath humid caverns rests upon coverlets heaped with slumbrous flowers, his garments reek, and the cushions are warm with his sluggish body, and above the bed a dark vapour rises from his breathing mouth. One hand holds up the locks that fall from his left temple, from the other drops his neglected horn.”
Stat super occiduae nebulosa cubilia Noctis Aethiopasque alios, nulli penetrabilis astro, lucus iners, subterque cavis graue rupibus antrum it uacuum in montem, qua desidis atria Somni securumque larem segnis Natura locavit. limen opaca Quies et pigra Oblivio servant et numquam vigili torpens Ignauia vultu. Otia vestibulo pressisque Silentia pennis muta sedent abiguntque truces a culmine ventos et ramos errare vetant et murmura demunt alitibus. non hic pelagi, licet omnia clament litora, non ullus caeli fragor; ipse profundis vallibus effugiens speluncae proximus amnis saxa inter scopulosque tacet: nigrantia circum armenta omne solo recubat pecus, et nova marcent germina, terrarumque inclinat spiritus herbas. mille intus simulacra dei caelaverat ardens Mulciber: hic haeret lateri redimita Voluptas, hic comes in requiem vergens Labor, est ubi Baccho, est ubi Martigenae socium puluinar Amori obtinet. interius tecti in penetralibus altis et cum Morte jacet, nullique ea tristis imago cernitur. hae species. ipse autem umentia subter antra soporifero stipatos flore tapetas incubat; exhalant vestes et corpore pigro strata calent, supraque torum niger efflat anhelo ore vapor; manus haec fusos a tempore laevo sustentat crines, haec cornu oblita remisit.

Statius book Thebaid

Source: Thebaid, Book X, Line 84 (tr. J. H. Mozley)

Love, Death, God, Pleasure

“e as you, but he couldn’t see me, because I was dark and Indian-looking and didn’t have blue eyes like him. Your mother and me, we are not going to forget you and your sisters like my father forgot me. I swear it!”

Victor Villaseñor (1940) American writer

Burro Genius: A Memoir (2004)

Sister

“"Why don't we just leave this room today forgetting the word 'earmark'?"-June 2007”

Nancy Pelosi (1940) American politician, first female Speaker of the House of Representatives, born 1940

[Darling, Brian, Pelosi Lets Earmarks Rule the Day in Congress, Human Events, 64, 34, October 6, 2008, 2008-11-22]
2000s

“Leave your stepping stones behind, something calls for you.
Forget the dead you've left, they will not follow you.”

Bob Dylan (1941) American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and artist

Song lyrics, Bringing It All Back Home (1965), It's All Over Now, Baby Blue

Dead

“When I was in my teens, I invented a term to describe them. I call it 'holiday consciousness'... because I often experienced this sense of optimism and wide-awakeness when setting out on a journey or a holiday. It was always the feeling that the world is self-evidently complex and beautiful, and that life is so obviously good that man's boredom and defeat is an absurdity... And then I used to ask: Why do men forget this so easily? And the answer seemed obvious: because the human will is so flabby and weak. Instead of being self-controlled, self-driven creatures, most men are little more than leaves on a stream, they drift along hoping for the best. I once wrote that men are like grandfather clocks driven by watchsprings.”

Colin Wilson (1931–2013) author

Source: The Black Room (1975), p. 75

Life, Men, World, Beauty

“Writers used to say, "You don't drive in 100 runs," burt they forget I played for the worst team in baseball from 1955 to 1960. I didn't drive in runs because there was no one to drive in.”

Roberto Clemente (1934–1972) Puerto Rican baseball player

As quoted in "Clemente Changes Batting Title Tune" https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=d9weAAAAIBAJ&sjid=OVAEAAAAIBAJ&pg=7121,5291429 by Phil Musick, in The Pittsburgh Press (Thursday, August 14, 1969), p. 38 Baseball-related, <big><big>1960s</big></big>, <big>1969</big>

“Honey,” Jammer said, “you'll learn. Some things you teach yourself to remember to forget.”

William Gibson book Count Zero

Spoken to Jackie, Ch. 28
Count Zero (1986)

Learning

“Mitt did not quite forget his perfect land. He remembered it, though a little fuzzily, next time the wind dropped, but he did not set off to look for it again. It was plain to him that soldiers only brought you back again if you went. It made him sad. When an inkling of it came to him in silence, or in scents, or, later, if the wind hummed a certain note, or a storm came shouting in from the sea and he caught the same note in the midst of its noise, he thought of his lost perfect place and felt for a moment as if his heart would break.”

Diana Wynne Jones (1934–2011) English children's fantasy writer

Source: Dalemark Quartet, Drowned Ammet (1977), p. 233.

Sadness, Silence, Time, Heart

“Postumus was clever: he guessed that this would make Cato angry enough to forget himself. And Cato rose to the bait, shouting out with a string of old-fashioned curses that in the days of his ancestor, whose memory this stammering imp was insulting, woe betide any child who failed in reverence to his elders; for they dealt out discipline with a heavy hand in those days. Whereas in these degenerate times the leading men of Rome gave any ignorant oafish lout (this was for Postumus) or any feeble-minded decrepit-limbed little whippersnapper (this was for me) full permission—
Postumus interrupted with a warning smile: "So I was right. The degenerate Augustus insults the great Censor by employing you in his degenerate family. I suppose you have told the Lady Livia just how you feel about things?"”

Robert Graves book I, Claudius

Source: I, Claudius (1934), Ch. 5.

Men, Family, Smile, Feeling

“I'll never forget my little city! I could talk a whole day about it! - talking about her hometown Erexim.”

Alessandra Ambrosio (1981) Brazilian model

http://features.yahoo.com/model/aa/ Attributed

“People often forget that in 1940 there was no guarantee that we were going to win.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

This quote is actually from Churchill's daughter, Lady Soames. See "The Beacon of the Western Way of Life" http://www.winstonchurchill.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=135 Misattributed

People

“If you want to lead, never forget that the standards for you are set very high. People look up to you. Trust is a precious commodity in all of our relationships. We can’t afford to lose it by compromising on our values. People are watching and counting on us.”

Don Soderquist (1934–2016)

Don Soderquist “ Live Learn Lead to Make a Difference https://books.google.com/books?id=s0q7mZf9oDkC&lpg=pg=PP1&dq=Don%20Soderquist&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false, Thomas Nelson, April 2006 p. 156. On Building Trust

People