Nothing fixes a thing so intensely in the memory as the wish to forget it.
- Michel de Montaigne

He is indebted to his memory for his jests and to his imagination for his facts.
- Richard Brinsley Sheridan

If you tell the truth you don't have to remember anything.
- Mark Twain

I have the worst memory ever so no matter who comes up to me - they're just, like, 'I can't believe you don't remember me!" I'm like, 'Oh Dad I'm sorry!'
- Ellen DeGeneres

A lot of people mistake a short memory for a clear conscience.
- Doug Larson

There is not any memory with less satisfaction than the memory of some temptation we resisted.
- James Branch Cabell

I write down everything I want to remember. That way, instead of spending a lot of time trying to remember what it is I wrote down, I spend the time looking for the paper I wrote it down on.
- Beryl Pfizer

For an interesting article on memory to which I was a contributor, click HERE.

The test of pleasure is the memory it leaves behind.
- John Paul Richter

The incidence of memory is like the light from dead stars whose influence lingers long after the events themselves.
- David Horowitz

If you want to test your memory, try to remember what you were worrying about one year ago today.
- E. Joseph Cossman

A "fancy" is indeed no other than a mode of memory emancipated from the order of space and time.
- Samuel Taylor Coleridge

One must have a good memory to be able to keep the promises one makes.

I've got "Sometimers." Sometimes I remember and sometimes I forget.
- Spike Lee

Music, once admitted to the Soul, becomes a sort of spirit, and never dies. It wanders perturbedly through the halls and galleries of the memory, and is often heard again, distinct and living, as when it first displaced the wavelets of the air.
- Edward George Bulwer-Lytton

Men forget everything; women remember everything. That's why men need instant replays in sports.
- Rita Rudner

I have a photographic memory. But I don't have same-day service.
- Diane Sawyer

It's hard to be nostalgic when you can't remember anything.

If you wish to forget anything on the spot, make a note that this thing is to be remembered.
- Edgar Allen Poe

At the end of each day, the average person can remember:
11% of what they heard that day
30% of what they saw
50% of what they heard and saw
90% of what they did
Adults learn best by doing.

First you forget names, then you forget faces, then you forget to zip your fly, then you forget to unzip your fly.

We retain:

  • 10 percent of what we read
  • 20 percent of what we hear
  • 30 percent of what we see
  • 50 percent of what we hear and see
  • 70 percent of what we say
  • 90 percent of what we say and do
    •  The mind is a wonderful thing. It starts working the minute you're born and never stops working until you get up to speak in public.

    Tell me and I'll forget; Show me and I may remember; involve me and I'll understand.
    - old Chinese Proverb

    Memories in our heads are much less locally stored than in a computer. Analogy: A word written on one page of a book vs word written across the edges of the pages of a book. In the second case, you can pull out several pages and still read the word written on the edges of the pages. The brain works the same way.

    An elderly couple was rocking on the porch. The husband says: "I'm going to go get some ice cream at the store, do you want some?" To which the wife replied "Yes, get me some vanilla with strawberries. You'd better write it down, you know how forgetful you are." "Hey, my memory's no worse than yours!" "Okay." Sometime later, husband comes home, gives wife a ham sandwich. Wife looks at it, says, "See, I knew you would forget - there's no mustard on it!"

    BRAIN: Parallel vs Serial processing: Try to find the location of one particular sentence in a book. Could tear out pages and have people read their page - would find out rapidly. However, if book was broken out into individual sentences, mixed up, and randomly handed out to the same group with the task of re-assembling them in the correct page order, it would be difficult. This is clearly a serial task. Biology (the brain) heavily emphasizes parallel processing.

    Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
    - Santayana

    The only difference between a RUT and a grave is how deep, how wide and how long you are in it.
    - Charles Garfield


    End of Quotes on "Memory"

    12/10/2008

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