Pensamentos sobre a memória

A arquitectura da memória:


Lulled in the countless chambers of the brain, our thoughts are linked by many a hidden chain; awake but one, and in, what myriads rise! (Alexander Pope)





Memória e identidade:


Fala-se muito do poder da educação, mas as memórias sagradas que guardamos desde a infância, são provavelmente a melhor educação. Se carregarmos essas memórias ao longo da vida, estamos salvos para o resto dos nossos dias. Uma boa lembrança no nosso coração pode ser o instrumento da nossa salvação. (Dostoievski)
How we remember, what we remember, and why we remember form the most personal map of our individuality. (Christina Baldwin)
Every man's memory is his private literature. (Aldous Huxley)

[Memory is] a man's real possession...In nothing else is he rich, in nothing else is he poor.
(Alexander Smith)
Memory is the diary we all carry about with us. (Mary H. Waldrip)
I wear the key of memory, and can open every door in the house of my life. (Amelia E. Barr)
In memory each of us is an artist: each of us creates. (Patricia Hampl)


They ask me to remember / but they want me to remember / their memories / and I keep on remembering / mine. (Lucille Clifton)
I think, myself, that one's memories represent those moments which, insignificant as they may seem, nevertheless represent the inner self and oneself as most really oneself. (Agatha Christie)


Memória e esquecimento:


Há um elo secreto entre a lentidão e a memória, entre a rapidez e o esquecimento. (Milan Kundera)
If any one faculty of our nature may be called more wonderful than the rest, I do think it is memory. There seems something more speakingly incomprehensible in the powers, the failures, the inequalities of memory, than in any other of our intelligences. The memory is sometimes so retentive, so serviceable, so obedient; at others, so bewildered and so weak; and at others again, so tyrannic, so beyond control! We are, to be sure, a miracle every way; but our powers of recollecting and of forgetting do seem peculiarly past finding out. (Jane Austen)



I have a terrible memory; I never forget a thing. (Edith Konecky)
Nothing fixes a thing so intensely in the memory as the wish to forget it. (Michel de Montaigne)

But each day brings its petty dust our soon-choked souls to fill, and we forget because we must, and not because we will. (Matthew Arnold)
The key to a long and happpy life is, at times, a very short-term memory. (Scott Hamilton)
Uma condição necessária à nossa existência, não é a capacidade de lembrar, mas o seu oposto: o poder do esquecimento. (Sholem Asch)
Memory is the greatest of artists, and effaces from your mind what is unnecessary. (Maurice Baring)


Memória selectiva:


I can understand that memory must be selective, else it would choke on the glut of experience. What I cannot understand is why it selects what it does. (Virgilia Peterson)
The charm, one might say the genius of memory, is that it is choosy, chancy, and temperamental: it rejects the edifying cathedral and indelibly photographs the small boy outside, chewing a hunk of melon in the dust. (Elizabeth Bowen)


I remember what was missing instead of what was there. I am a chronicler of absence. (Carrie Fisher)


Memória e outras funções cognitivas:


Memory is the cabinet of the imagination, the treasury of reason, the registry of conscience, and, the council chamber of thought. (Basile)
I can never remember things I didn't understand in the first place. (Amy Tan)

The secret of a good memory is attention, and attention to a subject depends upon our interest in it. We rarely forget that which has made a deep impression on our minds. (Tyron Edwards)
A memória é a mãe da sabedoria. (Ésquilo)
A memória é o escriba da alma. (Aristóteles)


Memórias verdadeiras e memórias falsas:


A diferença entre as memórias verdadeiras e falsas é idêntica à das jóias: as falsas parecem mais reais e mais brilhantes. (Salvador Dali)


Pensamentos humorísticos sobre a memória:


I always have trouble remembering three things: faces, names, and -- I can't remember what the third thing is. (Fred A. Allen)

As with most fine things, chocolate has its season. There is a simple memory aid that you can use to determine whether it is the correct time to order chocolate dishes: any month whose name contains the letter A, E, or U is the proper time for chocolate.(Sandra Boynton)
If I could remember your name, I'd ask you where I left my keys. (Bumper Sticker)