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For life is but a dream whose shapes return,
Some frequently, some seldom, some by night
And some by day.

— James Thomson The City of Dreadful Night (1870)

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Memory

More quotes by James Thomson

The world rolls round for ever like a mill;
It grinds out death and life and good and ill;
It has no purpose, heart or mind or will.

The City of Dreadful Night (1870)

Yet I strode on austere;
No hope could have no fear.

The City of Dreadful Night (1870)

Yet why evoke the spectres of black night
To blot the sunshine of exultant years?

The City of Dreadful Night (1870)

The street-lamps burn amidst the baleful glooms,
Amidst the soundless solitudes immense
Of ranged mansions dark and still as tombs.

The City of Dreadful Night (1870)

What good, what use, what aim?
What compensation for the throes of birth
And death in all its frame?
What conscious life hath ever paid its cost?
From Nothingness to Nothingness — all lost!

All James Thomson quotes →

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

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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)

Attribution

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