William James Quotes

Memory is a big one: our ability to use the memory and move things in and out efficiently - that affected what we were able to do more than anything.

Every one complains of a poor memory, no one of a weak judgment.

It is certain that memory contains not only philosophy, but all the arts and all that appertain to the use of life.

For I regard memory not as a phenomenon preserving one thing and losing another merely by chance, but as a power that deliberately places events in order or wisely omits them. Everything we forget about our own lives was really condemned to oblivion by an inner instinct long ago.

The memory is sometimes so retentive, so serviceable, so obedient-at others so bewildered and weak-and at others again, so tyrannic, so beyond control!

Memory works like the collection glass in the Camera obscura: it gathers everything together and therewith produces a far more beautiful picture than was present originally.

We consider ourselves as defective in memory, either because we remember less than we desire, or less than we suppose others to remember.

Short term memory is not good.

The function of memory is not only to preserve, but also to throw away. If you remembered everything from your entire life, you would be sick.

Memory is funny. Once you hit a vein the problem is not how to remember but how to control the flow.

Memory, in my opinion, is a complete noodle. It hangs on the silliest things but forgets the stuff that really matters.

It sometimes occurs that memory has a personality of its own and volunteers or refuses its information at its will, not at mine.

The idea that when you correct a fact, you erase that fact from people's memories is the reverse of the truth. When you correct a fact, what you do is you further lodge that fact into people's minds, and they remember the error.

Memory is not just the imprint of the past time upon us; it is the keeper of what is meaningful for our deepest hopes and fears.

There is also a particular area of sleep called slow-wave sleep. I immediately liked this idea. It turns out this part of sleep is where the brain basically gets into step with itself and gets into this one single phase of these relatively slow brain waves - around 10 Hz or so - and the whole brain 'fires all at once'. This is a brilliant bit of sleep where we consolidate memory and learning, and memory is one of my obsessions really.

Memory is the basis of every journey.

A bad memory is the mother of invention.

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.

Memory is a wonderful thing if you don't have to deal with the past.

I think of memory as a game, that is as something one engages in with a very profound kind of "playfulness."

Memory is like a spiderweb that catches new information. The more it catches, the bigger it grows. And the bigger it grows, the more it catches.

Memory, when duly impregnated with ascertained facts, is sometimes surprisingly fertile.

Most men have a good memory for facts connected with their own pursuits.

People's memories are maybe the fuel they burn to stay alive.

The very effort to forget teaches us to remember.