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Memory Quotes

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Memory Quotes

“In psychology, we have a name for the automatic scripts our brains piece together when we repeatedly do the same thing in the same way: procedural memory. It’s such an important repository of information that only the most frequently repeated patterns get stored like this. It functions somewhat separately from other memory systems, and the specific information encoded isn’t accessible to consciousness. This kind of cognitive coding is a sort of mental equivalent of admin-only files on your computer. Your computer’s best functioning relies on you not naively messing around in its most fundamental code, which it stashes away behind several layers of obfuscation. This is why we don’t know much about our habits. The information we learn as a habit is to some extent separated from other neural regions. Procedural coding protects information from change. This is the advantage to the way our minds encode habits. You don’t forget how to ride a bike regardless of how well you learn to ride a skateboard or surf. You can do it years after stopping. You balance and push the pedals without thinking. While cycling, you can even talk to others or enjoy the scenery. Your bike-riding habit didn’t get overwritten by new thoughts and experiences. Other habits are almost as sticky. Speaking a second language, playing a musical instrument, or cooking a favorite dish are skills that fade only slowly as you fail to use them. Past procedural learning is well preserved.”

LearningMemoryHabitsHabit Formation
Book:Good Habits, Bad Habits: The Science of Making Positive Changes That Stick
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“Thamus, as Socrates told the tale, saw a threat to the very nature of philosophical discourse. Here is what the Egyptian king supposedly told the clever god: Theuth, my paragon of inventors, the discoverer of an art is not the best judge of the good or harm which will accrue to those who practice it. So it is in this; you, who are the father of writing, have out of fondness for your off-spring attributed to it quite the opposite of its real function. Those who acquire it will cease to exercise their memory and become forgetful; they will rely on writing to bring things to their remembrance by external signs instead of by their own internal resources. What you have discovered is a recipe for recollection, not for memory. And as for wisdom, your pupils will have the reputation for it without the reality. They will receive a quantity of information without proper instruction, and in consequence be thought very knowledgeable when they are for the most part quite ignorant. And because they are filled with conceit of wisdom instead of real wisdom they will be a burden to society.”

WisdomKnowledgeTechnologyLearningTeachingMemoryInstruction
Book:A Splendor of Letters: The Permanence of Books in an Impermanent World – The Remarkable Final Trilogy on Bibliophiles from the Leading Authority
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“I have a friend from my graduate school days at The Ohio State University whom we nicknamed Aladdin. Aladdin and I took a number of Arabic classes together. Every now and then, we would play pick-up basketball at the university gym. Aladdin couldn’t shoot, but he was one of the quickest, most intense defenders I have ever seen. One day, he went high up for a layup at 100 mph, bumped a defender, and fell square on his head. Aladdin lay there motionless for a few minutes before gingerly getting up. He had apparently suffered a concussion. We drove him to the ER, before he decided in the reception that he felt okay enough to go home. I’ll never forget, while we were leaving the gym and during the car ride, Aladdin kept asking people to speak Arabic to him. I probably heard the phrase “Speak Arabic to me, Binyamin! [my Arabic name]” at least two dozen times. Aladdin, in his dizzied and confused state, waiting to be seen for a potentially serious injury, was afraid that he had forgotten Arabic. The next day Aladdin texted everyone saying he felt fine. In hindsight, this story is a comical illustration of every language learner’s worst fear: losing the skills they worked so hard to acquire. As it turns out, Aladdin didn’t forget Arabic and currently lives in Dubai.”

EducationLearningMemoryLanguage LearningMuscle MemoryForeign Languages
Book:The Art of Learning a Foreign Language: 25 Things I Wish They Told Me
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“You're going to learn if something's bad. It's not like you're going to say, 'Well, that lion was really unpleasant. I think maybe I'll come back here and see if I like it the next time.”

UnderstandingLearningEmotionsInstinctMemoryInstincts
Book:If I Understood You, Would I Have This Look on My Face?: My Adventures in the Art and Science of Relating and Communicating
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“...collective memory is unevenly distributed: some people have a rich and deep resource, for others it is minimal. A matter of education, and also of inclination. But however minimal, however threadbare, it is ballast of a kind. We all need that seven-eighths of the iceberg, the ballast of the past, a general past, the place from which we came. That is why history should be taught in school, to all children, as much of it as possible. If you have no sense of the past, no access to the historical narrative, you are afloat, untethered; you cannot see yourself as a part of the narrative, you cannot place yourself within a context. You will not have an understanding of time, and a respect for memory and its subtle victory over the remorselessness of time.”

PastTimeUnderstandingEducationHistoryLearningMemory
Book:Ammonites And Leaping Fish: A Life In Time
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“If rewriting equals rereading, we must logically conclude that writing is reading. If this is indeed the case, how could we possibly write under a ban on reading? The only way left is mouth-to-mouth – poets and storytellers recite their pieces and before we can commit them to memory, everything vanishes into thin air.”

WritingReadingLiteratureBooksMemoryWritersLogicalPoetsAuthorsMouthStorytellersGold StandardRecitingRereadingSingapore LiteratureIreadbooksactuallyBooksactuallyBan
Author:Kyoko Yoshida
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“I sit alone in a dead world. The wind blows hot and dry, and the dust gathers like particles of memory waiting to be swept away. I pray for forgetfulness, yet my memory remains strong, as does the outstretched arm of the oppressive air. It seems as if the wind has been there since the beginning of the nightmare. Sometimes loud and harsh, a thousand sharp needles scratching at my reddened skin. Sometimes a whisper, a curious sigh in the black of night, of words more frightening than pain. I know now the wind has been speaking to me. Only I couldn't understand because I was too scared. I am scared now as I write these words. Still, there is nothing else to do.”

WorldFearWindMemoryAloneNightmareDeadNeedlesForgetfulnessWhispers
Book:Whisper of Death
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“Unfortunately, we live on a planet with many limitations — genetic, mental, physical, etc — and on top of that, we have our memory erased at birth, which I believe to be a very diabolical thing, even though many spiritualists see it as a positive thing. So in a way, being delusional does provide more comfort, which is why many people want it. Why think about growing old when I can just play video games and forget about it? And why not waste my time with as many distractions as possible?”

BirthComfortWasteMemoryLimitationsPlanetDistractionsVideo GamesSpiritualists
Author:Dan Desmarques
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“To hear never-heard sounds, To see never-seen colors and shapes, To try to understand the imperceptible Power pervading the world; To fly and find pure ethereal substances That are not of matter But of that invisible soul pervading reality. To hear another soul and to whisper to another soul; To be a lantern in the darkness Or an umbrella in a stormy day; To feel much more than know. To be the eyes of an eagle, slope of a mountain; To be a wave understanding the influence of the moon; To be a tree and read the memory of the leaves; To be an insignificant pedestrian on the streets Of crazy cities watching, watching, and watching. To be a smile on the face of a woman And shine in her memory As a moment saved without planning.”

WorldSoulMatterFeelingsRealityPoetryUnderstandingCitiesDarknessPowerTreeStreetsShapesMoonMountainSmileMemoryWaveFlyingPlanningInvisibleEyesPoetsDejan StojanovicReadMomentKnowFeelFaceUmbrellaColorsShineFlyEtherealLeavesWatchingSoundsWhisperEagleLanternSubstancesPedestrianStormy DayTask Of A PoetFace Of A WomanImperceptible
Author:Dejan Stojanovic
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“La memoria es la capacidad de seguir adelante arrastrando ciertos aspectos de la experiencia. Incluso los músculos tienen memoria, algo que puede apreciarse con los cambios que se producen en ellos como resultado del ejercicio. No obstante, y más importante aún, la memoria es lo que el cerebro hace, el modo en que nos forma, y permite que nuestro pasado ayude a determinar nuestro futuro. En gran medida, el cerebro nos convierte en quienes somos(...).”

BrainGrowing UpDevelopmentMemoryNeurology
Book:A Child's Loss: Helping Children Exposed to Traumatic Death
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“And you might try to hide or protect yourself, or compare the different states of love, but you must not grow up, must not act wise when it comes to love. You must stay foolish and fall for every heart will beat in different ways together with yours and love is not meant to be compared, only enjoyed, and suffered, and remembered.”

LoveYoungPoetryGrowing UpYouthMemoryProseHeart BreakSufferProse PoetryThe Glass ChildCharlotte ErikssonOpen Up
Author:Charlotte Eriksson
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“It is tiring to be a woman who loves to eat in a society where hunger is something not to be satisfied but controlled. Where a long history of female hunger is associated with shame and madness. The body must be punished for every misstep; for every "indulgence" the balance of control must be restored. To enjoy food as a young woman, to opt out every day from the guilt expected of me, is a radical act, of love.”

FoodMemory
Book:Tiny Moons: A Year of Eating in Shanghai
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