And we forget because we must And not because we will.

-Arnold, Matthew
  Empedocles on Etna and Other Poems,'Absence'.

L'amoureux qui n'oublie pas quelquefois meurt par exce'  s, fatigue et tension de me¤  moire (tel Werther). The lover who does not forget sometimes dies from excess, fatigue, and the strain of memory (like Werther).

-Barthes, Roland
  Fragments d'un discours amoureux.

I am like that. I either forget right away or I never forget.

-Beckett, Samuel
  Waiting for Godot, act 2.

To remember is far worse than to forget.

-Benuzzi, Felice
  On being a Prisoner of  War. No Picnic on Mount Kenya.

Can a woman forget her suckling child, that she should not have compassion on theson of her womb? yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee.

-Bible (Old Testament)
Isaiah 49:15.

Good, to forgive; Best, to forget! Living, we fret; Dying, we live.

-Browning, Robert
  La Saisiaz, prologue.

Skill comes so slow, and life so fast doth fly, We learn so little and forget so much.

-Davies, SirJohn
  Nosce Teipsum, stanza19.

Let usnotforgetthat we cannevergofarther thanwe can persuade at least half the people to go.

-Gaitskell, Hugh
  Labour Party conference speech, Oct.

You were never no locomotive, Sunflower, you were a sunflower! And you Locomotive, you are a locomotive, forget me not!

-Ginsberg, Allen
  Howl and Other Poems,'Sunflower Sutra'.

In the depths of every heart, there is a tomb and a dungeon, though the lights, the music, and revelry above may cause us to forget their existence, and the buried ones, or prisoners whom they hide.

-Hawthorne, Nathaniel
Twice-Told Tales,'The Haunted Mind'.

Well, people change and forget to tell each other. Too badöcauses so many mistakes.

-Hellman, Lillian Florence
   Anna. Toys in the Attic, act 3.

Ihadthepaperbut Ididnot read it becauseIdidnot want to read about the war. I was going to forget the war. I had made a separate peace.

-Hemingway, Ernest Millar
  Frederic Henry.  A Farewell to  Arms, ch.34.

All the wrong people remember Vietnam. I think all the people who remember it should forget it, and all the people who forgot it should remember it.

-Herr, Michael
  In the Observer,15  Jan.

I should have been glad to have humanity forget all about strayalcoholic drinks†but in the present stage of human progress, this vehicle of joy could not be generally suppressed by federal law.

-Hoover, Herbert Clark
  On prohibition. The Memoirs of Herbert Hoover, vol.1.

The propagandist's purpose istomake oneset of people forget that certain other sets of people are human.

-Huxley, Aldous Leonard
  The Olive Tree.

Iamnot yet so lost inlexicographyastoforgetthat words arethe daughters of earth, and thatthings arethesons of heaven. Language is only the instrument of science, and words are but thesigns of ideas: Iwish, however, that the instrument might be less apt to decay, and that signs might be permanent, like the things which they denote.

-Johnson, Samuel known as Dr Johnson
  A Dictionary of the English Language, preface.

Maxima debetur puero reverentia, si quid turpe paras. If you are planning any misdeed, never forget that a child has a first claim on your respect.

-Juvenal full name Decimus Iunius Iuvenalis
Satirae, no.14, l.47 (translated by Peter Green).

Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget What thou among the leaves hast never known, The weariness, the fever, and the fret Here, where men sit and hear each other groan; Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last grey hairs, Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies; Where but to think is to be full of sorrow And leaden-eyed despairs.

-Keats,John
  Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St.  Agnes and Other Poems,'Ode to a Nightingale', stanza 3.

The tumult and the shouting diesö The captains and the kings departö Still standsThine ancient Sacrifice, An humble and a contrite heart. Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet, Lest we forgetölest we forget! See Bible 95:31.

-Kipling, (Joseph) Rudyard
  'Recessional'.

When I am dead, my dearest, Sing no sad songs for me; Plant thou no roses at my head, Nor shady cypress tree: Be the green grass above me With showers and dewdrops wet; And if thou wilt, remember, And if thou wilt, forget.

-Rossetti, Christina Georgina
  Goblin Market and Other Poems,'When I Am dead'.