“Darkness and light divide the course of time, and oblivion shares with memory, a great part even of our living beings; we slightly remember our felicities, and the smartest strokes of affliction leave but short smart upon us. Sense endureth no extremities, and sorrows destroy us or themselves. To weep into stones are fables.”

— Thomas Browne , book Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial

Source: Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial (1658), Chapter V

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Thomas Browne 78

English polymath 1605–1682

Anselm Kiefer (1945) German painter and sculptor

the Second World War
n.p.
Tim Marlow joins Anselm Kiefer to discuss his work' - 2005

“Why is it only in darkness that we remember what sustained us even in the light?”

Francine Rivers book A Voice in the Wind

Source: A Voice in the Wind

“Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time;”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow book Voices of the Night

St. 7.
A Psalm of Life (1839)
Source: Voices of the Night

“Wisely was it written: ‘Let him that desireth oblivion confer benefits—but the memory of an injury endureth for ever.”

F. Anstey (1856–1934) English novelist and journalist

Source: The Brass Bottle (1900), Chapter 4, “At Large”

“United we stand, divided we fall. Let us not split into factions which must destroy that union upon which our existence hangs.”

Patrick Henry (1736–1799) attorney, planter, politician and Founding Father of the United States

Last public speech before his death (4 March 1799); as quoted in Patrick Henry: Life, Correspondences and Speeches (1891) by William Wirt Henry, Vol. 2, p. 609-610 http://www.archive.org/stream/pathenrylife02henrrich#page/608/mode/2up
1790s, Speech (1799)
Context: Let us trust God and our better judgment to set us right hereafter. United we stand, divided we fall. Let us not split into factions which must destroy that union upon which our existence hangs. Let us preserve our strength for the French, the English, the Germans, or whoever else shall dare invade our territory, and not exhaust it in civil commotions and intestine wars.

“When we participate actively in our lives and open our senses to all the stimuli around us, we build memories that can be retrieved and enjoyed the rest of our lives.”

Marilu Henner (1952) American actress

Total Memory Makeover (2012), p. 23 https://books.google.it/books?id=LCPiLFodRHMC&pg=PA4023.

“It’s what we chase but never find. It is the mystery of our lives, the understanding that even when we have everything we want it is one day to leave us. It’s the something unseen, the lurking devastation, the darkness that gives our lives dimension.”

Marisha Pessl (1977) American writer

Source: Night Film

“Time devours our feeble mortality, leaving us with but the sour residue of memory.”

Robert Sheckley book Mindswap

Marvin nodded. “Yet this ineffable and ungraspable quantity,” he replied, “this time which no man may possess, is in truth our only possession.”
Source: Mindswap (1966), Chapter 24 (p. 110)

“Even though they, themselves, were material beings, they could show themselves to us only by taking on bodies that our senses were able to perceive.”

Cyrano de Bergerac (1619–1655) French novelist, dramatist, scientist and duelist

The Other World (1657)

“The loss was sudden and terrible, and for their families, the grief is heavy. Our nation shares in your sorrow and in your pride. And today we remember not only one moment of tragedy, but seven lives of great purpose and achievement.”

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

2000s, 2003, Columbia space shuttle disaster (February 2003)

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Thomas Browne 78

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