81 Metaphors for memories

My memory is not the best, While some things I would fain forget Come like an uninvited guest, And often cause me much regret.

If Memory indeed it were, Or such it only feign'd to be A female figure came to her, Who said, "My name is Memory: "Gold purchases in me no share, Nor do I dwell in distant land; Study, and thought, and watchful care,

No words but these,and these to him are best: That, henceforth, like a quenchless vestal flame, His words of truth shall burn on Truth's pure shrine; His memory be truth worshipped and confessed; Our gratitude and love, the priestess line, Who serve before Truth's altar, in his name.

And a people possessing this good should surely feel not only a ready sympathy with the effort of those who, having lost the good, strive to regain it, but a profound pity for any degradation resulting from its loss; nay, something more than pity when happier nationalities have made victims of the unfortunate whose memories nevertheless are the very fountain to which the persecutors trace their most vaunted blessings.

They would cherish all differences that marked them off from their hated oppressors, all memories that consoled them with a sense of virtual though unrecognised superiority; and the separateness which was made their badge of ignominy would be their inward pride, their source of fortifying defiance.

In the light of what has happened since, the very memory is an insult.

Memory is a net; one finds it full of fish when he takes it from the brook; but a dozen miles of water have run through it without sticking.

Cherished memories are these pleasant visions and they come to me often, vivid as realities.

And in thus speaking, I am not denying that a strong and ready memory is in itself a real treasure; I am not disparaging a well-stored mind, though it be nothing besides, provided it be sober, any more than I would despise a bookseller's shop:it is of great value to others, even when not so to the owner.

"Old memories are spectres that do seem to chase the soul out of the world,"an old quotation which may be admitted without embracing the metaphysical paradox, that "subjective thought is the poison of life," or conceding the sharp sneer of the cynic "Know, ye who for your pleasures gape, Man's life at best is but a scrape.

"My memory is a broken reedyou remember?" For a moment Claude de Chauxville met the full, quiet, gray eyes.

Memory is the most sacred, but also the most perishable of shrines; hence it sometimes seems well worth while to break through reticence to give greater permanence to precious recollections.

Memory is not our strong point, but you can perhaps throw back your mind to a year ago and recall how near we came to the ruin of our hopes.

Her memory of Dickie was always whitethe whiteness of that moonlight of their first, of that dawn of their last, meeting.

Her earliest childhood memory is the quiet weavers' street where the afternoon sun glints under the tamarind trees and, striking the long looms set in the open air, brings out the blue and mauve, the deep crimson and purple and gold of the weaving.

Old memories are restless companions for the old.

Quiet and forceful; competent as a critic, but ready with encouragement; simple in manner, easily approached; patient with those who appealed to her, seeking rather than waiting to be sought; abundantly appreciative of others, her memory becomes an abiding impulse towards high and generous thought, towards simple, worthy living.

In spite of reverses on the Continent and civil wars in their own island, the Kings of England had not abandoned their claims to the crown of France; they were still in possession of Calais; and the memory of the battles of Crecy, Poitiers, and Agincourt was still a tower of strength to them.

Therefore she was just superstitious enough to feel that "May" might bring happiness, since her father's memory was the single unshadowed spot in her life of twenty-three years.

A copious verbal memory, like a copious memory of facts, is only one source of power, and without the high controlling faculty of the artist may lead to diffusive indecision.

Without impeaching William's merit, His head but served him for the letter, Hers miss'd the words, but kept the spirit; Her memory to her heart was debtor.

Let us be thankful, say I, that memory is so little the servant of the will.

And so, although the memory and the name of John Cairns may become fainter as the years and generations pass, his influence will live on in the Christian Church, to whose ideal of goodness he brought the contribution of his character.

She left the town, some time ago, to live in the south of England; but the blessings of many who were ready to perish in Wigan will follow her all her days, and her memory will long remain a garden of good thoughts and feelings to those she has left behind.

By this time you have seen that memory is not a mysterious mental faculty with which some people are generously endowed, and of which others are deprived.

81 Metaphors for  memories