Memory (n.) not only discovers personal identity but helps produce it, by filling the chain of thought with images resembling past perceptions.
Memory (n.) of our past feelings is a faithful mirror that copies truly — but in faint and dull colours compared to those the originals wore.
Memory (n.) is so far from being a virtue that men affect to complain of a bad one, to persuade the world that everything they say is their own invention.
Memory (n.) is an idea that keeps some of its first vivacity — halfway between an impression and an idea, painting in more distinct colours than imagination.
Memory (n.) has lost its prestige since writing: its defects are supplied by method and paper, whereas the defects of judgement can be supplied by no art at all.
Memory's (n.) chief work is not to keep the simple ideas but their order and position; it is tied down where imagination is free.
Memory (n.) can be cut away by an injury: a man hurt by a fall from a horse forgot about twenty years of his life, and remembered what went before more vividly than usual.
Memory (n.) differs from imagination by a feeling alone: one lucky circumstance mentioned, and ideas a friend took for fictions suddenly appear in a new light and are assented to.
Memory (n.) fades into fancy: 'I think I remember such an event, but am not sure' — a long tract of time leaves us unable to tell recollection from the pure offspring of imagination.