“Our memory is childish and it saves only what we need.”

— Czeslaw Milosz

"Yellow Bicycle," trans. Czesław Miłosz and Robert Hass
Unattainable Earth (1986)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Our memory is childish and it saves only what we need." by Czeslaw Milosz?

Czeslaw Milosz photo

Czeslaw Milosz106

Polish, poet, diplomat, prosaist, writer, and translator 1911–2004

Related quotes

“A liberal society cannot be defended by herbivores. We need carnivores to save us, but we had better make sure the meat-eaters hunt only on our orders.”

Michael Ignatieff (1947) professor at Harvard Kennedy School and former Canadian politician

New York Times magazine op-ed piece, May 2, 2004

“What are we, after all, without our memories … without our dreams?”

Nicholas Sparks book The Wedding

Variant: What are we after all our dreams, after all our memories?
Source: The Wedding

“My best friends are my memories
They're the only ones that save me from misery”

Paul Rey (1992) Swedish singer

Source: Song Tear me down

“Ah, we fondly cherish
Faded things
That had better perish.
Memory clings
To each leaf it saves.
Chilly winds are blowing.
It will soon be snowing
On our graves.”

John Henry Boner (1845–1903) American writer

Gather Leaves and Grasses, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

“Stories are the only enchantment possible, for when we begin to see our suffering as a story, we are saved.”

Anaïs Nin (1903–1977) writer of novels, short stories, and erotica

“How little remains of the man I once was, save the memory of him! But remembering is only a new form of suffering.”

Charles Baudelaire book La Fanfarlo

Source: La Fanfarlo

“The power of the ballot we need in sheer defense,
else what shall save us from a second slavery?”

W.E.B. Du Bois (1868–1963) American sociologist, historian, activist and writer

“What need is there to say more?
The childish work for their own benefit,
The buddhas work for the benefit of others.
Just look at the difference between them.”

Šantidéva (685–763) 8th-century Indian Buddhist monk and scholar

Attributed

“Don't you understand that we need to be childish in order to understand? Only a child sees things with perfect clarity, because it hasn't developed all those filters which prevent us from seeing things that we don't expect to see.”

Douglas Adams book Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

Source: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

“Memory fades, memory adjusts, memory conforms to what we think we remember.”

Joan Didion book Blue Nights

Source: Blue Nights

Related topics