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In the practical use of our intellect, forgetting is as important a function as recollecting.

— William James The Principles of Psychology (1890)

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Memory

More quotes by William James

Be not afraid of life. Believe that life is worth living, and your belief will help create the fact.

The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy (1897)

Pacifists ought to enter more deeply into the aesthetical and ethical point of view of their opponents.

The Moral Equivalent of War (1906)

An act has no ethical quality whatever unless it be chosen out of several all equally possible.

The Principles of Psychology (1890)

The union of the mathematician with the poet, fervor with measure, passion with correctness, this surely is the ideal.

Collected Essays and Reviews (1920)

Most people live, whether physically, intellectually or morally, in a very restricted circle of their potential being.

The Letters of William James (1920)

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Women and elephants never forget an injury.

Saki Reginald (1904)

Man should possess an infinite appetite for life. It should be self-evident to him, all the time, that life is superb, glorious, endlessly rich, infinitely desirable.

Colin Wilson The Philosopher's Stone (1969)

To live in hearts we leave behind
Is not to die.

Thomas Campbell

In memory everything seems to happen to music.

Tennessee Williams The Glass Menagerie (1944)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: William James (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.