Quotes about memorial
A collection of quotes on the topic of memory, memorial, time, timing.
Quotes about memorial
José Baroja (1983) Chilean author and editor
Source: https://www.peruinforma.com/entrevista-cultural-al-escritor-chileno-jose-baroja/
“Sometimes you will never know the value of a moment until it becomes a memory.”
Dr. Seuss (1904–1991) American children's writer and illustrator, co-founder of Beginner Books
Georges Duhamel in THE HEART'S DOMAIN (1919). As it was composed in French, the wording in English may vary in translation. Theodore Geisel / Dr. Seuss was born in 1904, and would have been about 15 years old at the time that it was published. The full text can be found at the link below: We do not know the true value of our moments until they have undergone the test of memory. Like the images the photographer plunges into a golden bath, our sentiments take on color; and only then, after that recoil and that trans-figuration, do we understand their real meaning and enjoy them in all their tranquil splendor.
Misattributed
“Play Mozart in memory of me— and I will hear you.”
Frédéric Chopin (1810–1849) Polish composer
Murmured by Chopin on his death-bed.
Source: The opera reader, Biancolli, 1953, p. 271
“Unhappy is he to whom the memories of childhood bring only fear and sadness.”
H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) American author
Tennessee Williams The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore
Source: The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore
Kurt Cobain (1967–1994) American musician and artist
As quoted in Rolling Stone (1992-04-16).
Interviews (1989-1994), Print
Context: All drugs are a waste of time. They destroy your memory and your self-respect and everything that goes along with your self-esteem. They’re no good at all. But I’m not going to go around preaching against [them].
Cesare Pavese (1908–1950) Italian poet, novelist, literary critic, and translator
This Business of Living (1935-1950)
Variant: The richness of life lies in memories we have forgotten.
Source: The Burning Brand: Diaries, 1935-1950
“Memories mean more to me than dresses.”
Anne Frank (1929–1945) victim of the Holocaust and author of a diary
“Memories and possibilities are ever more hideous than realities.”
H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) American author
"Herbert West: Re-Animator" in "Home Brew" Vol. 1, No. 1 (February 1922)
Fiction
“Unhappiness is caused when we cannot let go of our memories.”
Jed Rubenfeld The Interpretation of Murder
Source: The Interpretation of Murder
“In memory everything seems to happen to music.”
Tennessee Williams The Glass Menagerie
Tom (As Narrator Scene One)
Source: The Glass Menagerie (1944)
Elvis Presley (1935–1977) American singer and actor
That's Someone You Never Forget, from Pot Luck, written by Elvis Presley and Red West (1961)
Song lyrics
“Memory is a mirror that scandalously lies.”
Julio Cortázar book Around the Day in Eighty Worlds
Source: Around the Day in Eighty Worlds
“If there is any substitute for love, it is memory.”
Joseph Brodsky (1940–1996) Russian and American poet and Nobel Prize for Literature laureate
“Ultimate horror often paralyses memory in a merciful way.”
H.P. Lovecraft book The Rats in the Walls
Source: The Rats in the Walls
“I am hopelessly in love with a memory.
An echo from another time, another place.”
Michel Foucault (1926–1984) French philosopher
Shigeru Miyamoto (1952) Japanese video game designer and producer
On Wii <br class="br">Source: November 16, 2006 Business Week interview http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/nov2006/tc20061116_750580.htm
Leonardo DiCaprio (1974) American actor and film producer
http://www.popmonk.com/actors/leonardo-dicaprio/quotes-leonardo-dicaprio.htm
“You can hide memories, but you can't erase the history that produced them.”
Haruki Murakami book Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage
Source: Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage (2013)
“Preserve your memories, keep them well, what you forget you can never retell.”
Louisa May Alcott (1832–1888) American novelist
“Happiness is nothing more than good health and a bad memory.”
Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965) French-German physician, theologian, musician and philosopher
Variant: Happiness is nothing more than good health and a bad memory.
“Study without desire spoils the memory, and it retains nothing that it takes in.”
Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath
“It's just that… without the memories it's all meaningless.”
Lois Lowry book The Giver
Source: The Giver
Dante Alighieri book Vita Nuova
Source: La Vita Nuova (1293), Chapter I, opening lines (as reported in The 100 Best Love Poems of All Time by Leslie Pockell)
Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America
2011, UN speech to General Assembly (September 2011)
Augusto Pinochet (1915–2006) Former dictator of the republic of Chile
Statement (8 November 1998)
1990s
Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Prime Minister
Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1845/mar/17/agricultural-interest in the House of Commons (17 March 1845). <br class="br">1840s
“I have the most evil memories of Spain, but I have very few bad memories of Spaniards.”
George Orwell book Homage to Catalonia
Homage to Catalonia (1938)
Martin Luther (1483–1546) seminal figure in Protestant Reformation
Source: Against the Heavenly Prophets in the Matter of Images and Sacraments (1525), p. 91
Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues (1715–1747) French writer, a moralist
Source: Reflections and Maxims (1746), pp. 185-186.
Michelle Rodriguez (1978) American actress, screenwriter and DJ
CinemaBlendInterview: Michelle Rodriguez Talks Technology And Aliens In Battle: Los Angeles 11 March 2011 http://www.cinemablend.com/new/Interview-Michelle-Rodriguez-Talks-Technology-And-Aliens-In-Battle-Los-Angeles-23609.html
“Art consists of the persistence of memory.”
Stephen King book Misery
Misery (1987)
Context: Writers remember everything... especially the hurts. Strip a writer to the buff, point to the scars, and he'll tell you the story of each small one. From the big ones you get novels. A little talent is a nice thing to have if you want to be a writer, but the only real requirement is the ability to remember the story of every scar.
Art consists of the persistence of memory.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918–2008) Russian writer
Woe to that nation whose literature is cut short by the intrusion of force. This is not merely interference with freedom of the press but the sealing up of a nation’s heart, the excision of its memory.
Variant translation, as quoted in TIME (25 February 1974).
Nobel lecture (1970)
Context: Woe to that nation whose literature is disturbed by the intervention of power. Because that is not just a violation against "freedom of print", it is the closing down of the heart of the nation, a slashing to pieces of its memory. The nation ceases to be mindful of itself, it is deprived of its spiritual unity, and despite a supposedly common language, compatriots suddenly cease to understand one another
Indíra Gándhí (1917–1984) Indian politician and Prime Minister
Luther King" http://gos.sbc.edu/g/gandhi2.html"Martin, speech at the presentation of the Jawaharial Nehru Award for International Understanding to Coretta Scott King in New Delhi, India (January 24, 1969). Published in Selected Speeches and Writings of Indira Gandhi, September 1972-March 1977 (New Delhi : Publications Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Govt. of India, 1984. pp. 312-313). <br class="br">Context: We admired Dr. King. We felt his loss as our own. The tragedy rekindled memories of the great martyrs of all time who gave their lives so that men might live and grow. We thought of the great men in your own country who fell to the assassin's bullet and of Mahatma Gandhi's martyrdom here in this city, this very month, twenty-one years ago. Such events remain as wounds in the human consciousness, reminding us of battles, yet to be fought and tasks still to be accomplished. We should not mourn for men of high ideals. Rather we should rejoice that we had the privilege of having had them with us, to inspire us by their radiant personalities.
“Imagination is merely the exploitation of our memory.”
Pierre Bonnard (1867–1947) French painter and printmaker
George Orwell book England Your England
Part I : England Your England, § III
The Lion and the Unicorn (1941)
“Science and technology revolutionize our lives, but memory, tradition and myth frame our response.”
Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. (1917–2007) American historian, social critic, and public intellectual
When you remember everything you not only remember what you did right, you also remember your mistakes great and small. Also others seldom like to be made aware of their own mistakes that you may remember as well. They tend to get upset when reminded of them.
“A great memory does not make a philosopher, any more than a dictionary can be called grammar.”
John Henry Newman (1801–1890) English cleric and cardinal
Discourse VIII, pt. 10.
The Idea of a University (1873)
“Everyone has a photographic Memory, some just don't have film.”
Steven Wright (1955) American actor and author
Hubert Selby Jr. Requiem for a Dream
Source: Requiem for a Dream
John Updike (1932–2009) American novelist, poet, short story writer, art critic, and literary critic
Source: My Father's Tears and Other Stories
“Memories are the key not to the past, but to the future.”
Corrie ten Boom (1892–1983) Dutch resistance hero and writer
“You lose your immortality when you lose your memory.”
Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977) Russian-American novelist, lepidopterist, professor
Source: Ada, or Ardor: A Family Chronicle
“Memories cartwheel out of her head & tumble across the floor.”
Anthony Doerr book All the Light We Cannot See
Source: All the Light We Cannot See
“Memory was supposed to fill the time, but it made time a hole to be filled.”
Jonathan Safran Foer book Everything Is Illuminated
Source: Everything Is Illuminated
Francis Bacon (1561–1626) English philosopher, statesman, scientist, jurist, and author
Sylva Sylvarum Century X (1627)
Source: The Collected Works of Sir Francis Bacon
Context: It is true that may hold in these things, which is the general root of superstition; namely, that men observe when things hit, and not when they miss; and commit to memory the one, and forget and pass over the other.
“Memory is the scribe of the soul”
Aristotle (-384–-321 BC) Classical Greek philosopher, student of Plato and founder of Western philosophy
“That's what the world is, after all: an endless battle of contrasting memories.”
Haruki Murakami book 1Q84
Source: 1Q84 (2009-2010)
“It's a poor sort of memory that only works backwards.”
Lewis Carroll (1832–1898) English writer, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer
Variant: It's a poor sort of memory that only works backwards,' says the White Queen to Alice.
Source: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass
“I hate him for himself, but despise him for the memories he revives.”
Emily Brontë book Wuthering Heights
Source: Wuthering Heights
“Memory is the diary that we all carry about with us.”
Oscar Wilde The Importance of Being Earnest
Miss Prism, Act II
The Importance of Being Earnest (1895)
Carlos Ruiz Zafón book The Shadow of the Wind
Source: La sombra del viento (The Shadow of the Wind) (2001)
Gabriel García Márquez book Love in the Time of Cholera
Variant: .. the heart's memory eliminates the bad and magnifies the good, and [that] thanks to this artifice we manage to endure the burden of the past
Source: Love in the Time of Cholera

