If a man write little, he had need have a great memory; if he confer little, hehad need have a present wit; and if he read little he had need have much cunning, to seem to know that he doth not.

-Bacon, Francis,Viscount St Albans
  Essays, no.50,'Of Studies'.

I bequeath my soul to God† For my name and memory, I leave it to men's charitable speeches, and to foreign nations, and the next age.

-Bacon, Francis,Viscount St Albans
  From his will.

For an actress to be a success she must have the face of Venus, the brains of Minerva, the grace of Terpsichore, thememoryof Macaulay, thefigure of Juno, and thehide of a rhinoceros.

-Barrymore, Ethel
Quoted in George  Jean Nathan The Theatre in the Fifties (1953).

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.

Good music isthat whichpenetratesthe ear with facility and quits the memory with difficulty. Magical music never leaves the memory.

-Beecham, SirThomas
  Television broadcast,17 Nov.

The camera relieves us of the burden of memory.

-Berger,John Peter
  New Statesman,17  Aug.

For to him that is joined to all the living there is hope: for a living dog isbetter thana dead lion.For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten.

-Bible (Old Testament)
Ecclesiastes 9:4^5.

   'It's a poor sort of memory that only works backwards,' the Queen remarked.

-Dodgson
Through the Looking-Glass, ch.5,'Wool and Water'.

I amöyet what I am, none cares or knows; My friends forsake me like a memory lost: I am the self-consumer of my woes.

-Clare,John
  'I  Am'.

In plucking the fruit of memory one runs the risk of spoiling its bloom.

-Constantinus
  The Arrow of Gold, author's note. AD Roman Emperor, who adoptedChristianity c.312 AD. He founded a  royal  residence  at  Byzantium  (Constantinople),  an  act  of great historical importance.

It is all very well to copy what you see; it is much better to draw what you see only in memory.

-Degas, (Hilaire Germain) Edgar
Quoted in R H Ives Gammell The Shop-Talk of Edgar Degas (1961).

Par toi tout le bonheur que m'offre l'avenir Est dans mon souvenir. Through you, all the happiness that the future offers Is in my memory.

-Desbordes-Valmore, Marceline
  EŁ   legies, Marie et romances,'Le Souvenir'.

   Was there ever in anyone's life span a point free in time, devoid of memory, a night when choice was any more than the sum of all the choices gone before?

-Didion,Joan
  Run River, ch.4.

Ce n'est que par la me¤  moire que nous sommes un me"  me individu pour les autres et pour nous-me"  mes. Il ne me reste peut-e"  tre pas, a'   l'a"  ge quej'ai, une seule mole¤  cule du corps que j'apportai en naissant. It is only in memory that we are the same person for others and for ourselves. At the age I am now, there is probably not a single molecule of my body that I had when born.

-Diderot, Denis
  Discours sur la poe¤  sie dramatique.

Held in a lunar synthesis, Whispering lunar incantations Dissolve the floors of memory And all its clear relations Its divisions and precisions.

-Eliot,T(homas) S(tearns)
  Prufrock and Other Observations,'Rhapsody on a Windy Night'.

Midnight shakes the memory As a madman shakes a dead geranium.

-Eliot,T(homas) S(tearns)
  Prufrock and Other Observations,'Rhapsody on a Windy Night'.

April is the cruellest month, breeding Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing Memory and desire, stirring Dull roots with spring rain.

-Eliot,T(homas) S(tearns)
  The Waste Land, pt.1,'The Burial of the Dead'.

Footfalls echo in the memory Down the passage which we did not take Towards the door we never opened Into the rose-garden. My words echo Thus, in your mind.

-Eliot,T(homas) S(tearns)
  Four Quartets,'Burnt Norton', pt.1.

This is the use of memory: For liberationönot less of love but expanding Of love beyond desire, and so liberation From the future as well as the past.

-Eliot,T(homas) S(tearns)
  Four Quartets,'Little Gidding', pt.3.

I have but one request to make at my departure from this world, it isöthe charity of its silence. Let no man write my epitaph; for as no man who knows my motives, dare now vindicate them, let no prejudice or ignorance asperse them. Let them rest in obscurity and peace! Let my memory be left in oblivion, and my tomb remain uninscribed, until other times and other men can do justicetomycharacter.Whenmycountry takesher place among thenations of the earth, then, and not till then, let my epitaph be written.

-Emmet, Robert
  Speech before being sentenced.