Forgetful Quotes

Month by month, year by year, there took shape in Paul's mind a new and lucid image of his world, an image at once terrible and exquisite, tragic and farcical. It is difficult to give an idea of this new vision of Paul's, for its power depended largely on the immense intricacy and diversity of his recent experience; on his sense of the hosts of individuals swarming upon the planet, here sparsely scattered, there congested into great clusters and lumps of humanity. Speaking in ten thousand mutually incomprehensible dialects, living in manners reprehensible or ludicrous to one another, thinking by concepts unintelligible to one another, they worshipped in modes repugnant to one another. This new sense of the mere bulk and variety of men was deepened in Paul's mind by his enhanced apprehension of individuality in himself and others, his awed realization that each single unit in all these earth-devastating locust armies carried about with it a whole cognized universe. On the other hand, since he was never wholly forgetful of the stars, the shock between his sense of human littleness in the cosmos and his new sense of man's physical bulk and spiritual intensity increased his wonder. Thus in spite of his perception of the indefeasible reality of everyday things, he had also an overwhelming conviction that the whole fabric of common experience, nay the whole agreed universe of human and biological and astronomical fact, though real, concealed some vaster reality. ~ Olaf Stapledon

Pardon if all the cleanness and the beauty
Brave rhythym and the immemorial sea
Ensare us sometimes with their siren song,
Forgetful of our murderous intentions.
Through our uneasy peacetime carnival
Cold sweat of death holds us like a dew;
Even this grey machinery of murder
Holds beauty and the promise of a future. ~ Norman Hampson

My body had never felt so small or so fragile. In one sense, it was a moment of ecstasy and I was comforted with soft, almost compassionate, encouragement.

"Delicate," she said. The word imprinted on me like the cold before it. I was weak and going numb, but I was delicate. This is what I had wanted. I wanted to lose weight and retain some ounce of delicacy to resemble that of the spider-figured women I had seen in all those flashing images. Suddenly, the lack of strength displayed by my body was counterbalanced with a surging lease of mental satisfaction and might. As I lay in bed, buried under all my layers of clothes and bed sheets, the warmth still could not reach me. It was too late for that now and I didn't care. I just wanted to sleep, basking in my success and enduring the cold until I could finally slip into a forgetful slumber. ~ Leanne Waters

Klopstock was questioned regarding the meaning of a passage in his poem. He replied, 'God and I both knew what it meant once; now God alone knows.' ~ Cesare Lombroso

Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers. ~ T. S. Eliot

For sixty years I have been forgetful every minute, but not for a second has this flowing toward me stopped or slowed. ~ Rumi

All social inequalities which have ceased to be considered expedient, assume the character not of simple inexpediency, but of injustice, and appear so tyrannical, that people are apt to wonder how they ever could have been tolerated; forgetful that they themselves perhaps tolerate other inequalities under an equally mistaken notion of expediency, the correction of which would make that which they approve seem quite as monstrous as what they have at last learnt to condemn. The entire history of social improvement has been a series of transitions, by which one custom or institution after another, from being a supposed primary necessity of social existence, has passed into the rank of a universally stigmatised injustice and tyranny. So it has been with the distinctions of slaves and freemen, nobles and serfs, patricians and plebeians; and so it will be, and in part already is, with the aristocracies of colour, race, and sex. ~ John Stuart Mill

All these souls, after they have passed away a thousand years, are summoned by the divine ones in great array, to the lethean river ... In this way they become forgetful of the former earthlife, and re-visit the vaulted realms of the world, willing to return again into living bodies. ~ Virgil

I've been reading all sorts of objects for years, and yet I feel as if I know nothing. An Earth shattered to pieces. Deliberately forgetful family spirits. Indecipherable Books. You. ~ Christelle Dabos

I was turning into a zombie as I was aging. ~ Steven Magee

I'm terribly forgetful. I've lost laptops, cell-phones. ~ Ryan Tedder

Leadership expert Michael Hyatt reflected on Karnazes's life and drew three conclusions about why we should embrace discomfort: 1. Comfort is overrated. It doesn't lead to happiness. It makes us lazy - and forgetful. It often leads to self-absorption, boredom, and discontent. 2. Discomfort can be a catalyst for growth. It makes us yearn for something more. It forces us to change, stretch, and adapt. 3. Discomfort is often a sign we're making progress. You've heard the expression, "no pain, no gain." It's true! When you push yourself to grow, you will experience discomfort.2 ~ Samuel Chand

April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.
Summer surprised us. ~ T. S. Eliot

All persons are deemed to have a right to equality of treatment, except when some recognized social expediency requires the reverse. And hence all social inequalities which have ceased to be considered expedient assume the character, not of simple inexpediency, but of injustice, and appear so tyrannical that people are apt to wonder how they ever could have been tolerated - forgetful that they themselves, perhaps, tolerate other inequalities under an equally mistaken notion of expediency, the correction of which would make that which they approve seem quite as monstrous as what they have at last learned to condemn. The entire history of social improvement has been a series of transitions by which one custom or institution after another, from being a supposed primary necessity of social existence, has passed into the rank of a universally stigmatized injustice and tyranny. So it has been with the distinctions of slaves and freemen, nobles and serfs, patricians and plebians; and so it will be, and in part already is, with the aristocracies of color, race, and sex. ~ John Stuart Mill

Whenever a thought occurs, be aware of it, as soon as you are aware of it, it will vanish. If you remain for a long period forgetful of objects, you will naturally become unified. This is the essential art of zazen.32 ~ Yi Wu Taigen Leighton

Nature is like a wild animal that you have trained to work for you. So long as you are vigilant and walk warily with thought and care, so long will it give you its aid, but look away for an instant, be heedless or forgetful, and it has you by the throat. ~ Kamala Markandaya

We try many ways to be awake, but our society still keeps us forgetful. Meditation is to help us remember. ~ Nhat Hanh

Maxwell is serious, dedicated, awkward, forgetful, pompous to a certain degree, sentimental. ~ Don Adams

When warriors feel afraid they lack something, it is only because they are forgetful. They have forgotten how capable they truly are. ~ Mercedes Lackey

Henry's worldly goal at the moment was drinking enough beer to be happy and forgetful. ~ Anna Godbersen

Like all who are impassioned, I take blissful delight in losing myself, in fully experiencing the thrill of surrender. And so I often write with no desire to think, in an externalized reverie, letting the words cuddle me like a baby in their arms. They form sentences with no meaning, flowing softly like water I can feel, a forgetful stream whose ripples mingle and undefine, becoming other, still other ripples, and still again other. Thus ideas and images, throbbing with expressiveness, pass through me in resounding processions of pale silks on which imagination shimmers like moonlight, dappled and indefinite. ~ Fernando Pessoa

You have absorb'd me. I have a sensation at the present moment as though I was dissolving. ~ John Keats

I would like to read your handwriting and I would like to notice the way your eyes curve, and your wide white smile, and your simple yet personal style, and I would like to ask you the same damn questions again and again so that you wonder aloud if I do not listen but, no, I assure you without reassuring you: I have always been forgetful and it does not mean that I do not care. ~ Waylon H. Lewis

The essence of Christianity is the appeal to the life of Christ as a revelation of the nature of God and of God's agency in the world. The record is fragmentary, inconsistent, and uncertain ... But there can be no doubt as to what elements in the record have evoked a response from all that is best in human nature. The Mother, the Child, and the bare manger: the lowly man, homeless and self-forgetful, with his message of peace, love, and sympathy: the suffering, the agony, the tender words as life ebbed, the final despair: and the whole with the authority of supreme victory. ~ Alfred North Whitehead

Be not forgetful to entertain strangers; for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. ~ Serena B. Miller

Ensorcelled by that belling resonance, Conan crouched forgetful of all else, until its hypnotic power caused a strange replacement of faculties and perception, and sound created the illusion of sight. Conan was no longer aware of the voice, save as far-off rhythmical waves of sound. Transported beyond his age and his own individuality, he was seeing the transmutation of the being men called Khosatral Khel which crawled up from Night and the Abyss ages ago to clothe itself in the substance of the material universe. ~ Robert E. Howard

Know Deeply, Know Thyself More Deeply"

Go deeper than love, for the soul has greater depths,
love is like the grass, but the heart is deep wild rock
molten, yet dense and permanent.

Go down to your deep old heart, woman, and lose sight of yourself.
And lose sight of me, the me whom you turbulently loved.

Let us lose sight of ourselves, and break the mirrors.
For the fierce curve of our lives is moving again to the depths
out of sight, in the deep dark living heart.

But say, in the dark wild metal of your heart
is there a gem, which came into being between us?
is there a sapphire of mutual trust, a blue spark?
Is there a ruby of fused being, mine and yours, an inward glint?

If there is not, O then leave me, go away.
For I cannot be bullied back into the appearances of love,
any more than August can be bullied to look like March.

Love out of season, especially at the end of the season
is merely ridiculous.
If you insist on it, I insist on departure.

Have you no deep old heart of wild womanhood
self-forgetful, and gemmed with experience,
and swinging in a strange union of power
with the heart of the man you are supposed to have loved?

If you have not, go away.
If you can only sit with a mirror in your hand, an ageing woman
posing on and on as a lover,
in love with a self that now is shallow and withered, ~ D.H. Lawrence

You do not want to marry me, my lord. I would be the worst wife imaginable. I'm forgetful and stubborn, and I can never sit still for more than five minutes. I'm always doing things I shouldn't. I eavesdrop on other people, I shout and run in public, and I'm a clumsy dancer. And I've lowered my character with a great deal of unwholesome reading material." Pausing to draw breath, she noticed that Lord St. Vincent didn't appear properly impressed by her list of faults. "Also, my legs are skinny. Like a stork's."
At the indecent mention of body parts, Lord Chaworth gasped audibly, while Lord Westcliff developed a sudden keen interest in the nearby cabbage roses.
Lord St. Vincent's mouth worked against a brief tremor, as if he were amused despite himself. "I appreciate your candor," he said after a moment. ~ Lisa Kleypas

My grandfather's a little forgetful, but he likes to give me advice. One day, he took me aside and left me there. ~ Ron Richards

What's your dad doing for his bachelor party?"
I laugh. "Have you met my dad? He's the last person who would ever have a bachelor party. He doesn't even have any guy friends to have a party with!" I stop and consider this. "Well, I guess Josh is the closest thing he has. We haven't seen much of him since he went to school, but he and my dad still e-mail every so often."
"I don't get what your family sees in that guy," Peter says sourly. "What's so great about him?"
It's a touchy subject. Peter's paranoid my dad likes Josh better than him, and I try to tell him it's not a contest--which it definitely isn't. Daddy's known Josh since he was a kid. They trade comic books, for Pete's sake. So, no contest. Obviously my dad likes Josh better. But only because he knows him better. And only because they're more alike: Neither of them is cool. And Peter's definitely cool. My dad is bewildered by cool.
"Josh loves my dad's cooking."
"So do I!"
"They have the same taste in movies."
Peter throws in, "And Josh was never in a hot tub video with one of his daughters."
"Oh my God, let it go already! My dad's forgotten about that." "Forgotten" might be too strong of a word. Maybe more like he's never brought it up again and he hopefully never will.
"I find that hard to believe."
"Well, believe it. My dad is a very forgiving, very forgetful man. ~ Jenny Han

With the fullness of God, we are free to let humans be humans - fickle and fragile and forgetful. ~ Lysa TerKeurst

Nothing in the universe can travel at the speed of light, they say, forgetful of the shadow`s speed. ~ Howard Nemerov

There are two classes of Christians: the proud who imagine they are humble and the humble who are afraid they are proud. There should be another class: the self-forgetful who leave the whole thing in the hands of Christ and refuse to waste any time trying to make themselves good. They will reach the goal far ahead of the rest. ~ Aiden Wilson Tozer

Age is foolish and forgetful when it underestimates youth. ~ J.K. Rowling

Herodotus is not more indisputably the father of history than is Sir Boyle Roche the father of Bulls. No doubt there were makers of bulls before his day, even as brave men lived before Agamemnon; but they are not remembered, and if their bulls have survived them they are credited to Sir Boyle by a posterity generously forgiving and forgetful of his famous indictment. ~ Boyle Roche

All our human endeavours are like that, she reflected, and it is only because we are too ignorant to realize it, or are too forgetful to remember it, that we have the confidence to build something that is meant to last. ~ Alexander McCall Smith

River with no border
the forgetful hand of man

Gather harvest from the fallow land

Take all memory from it
to speak of lonely travellers
who hopelessly took orders

From armies lined within them
marching over fields and valleys

As though they were a river
not a woman nor a man
not a place for which to answer
but a cold and shapeless
journey from the sea ~ Tamara Rendell

Forgetful youth! but know, the Power above With ease can save each object of his love; Wide as his will extends his boundless grace. ~ Homer

Matthew turned as he became aware of someone approaching from behind. It was the pair of constables, looking disgruntled. "It's procedure for lawbreakers to wear 'and cuffs while they're being transported to Bow Street," one of them said. He gave Daisy an accusing glance. "Pardon, miss, but what did you do with the cuffs that was removed from Mr. Phelan?"
Daisy looked back at him innocently. "I gave them to a maidservant. I'm afraid she's very forgetful. She probably misplaced them."
"Where should we start looking?" the officer asked with a puff of impatience.
Her expression did not change as she replied, "I would suggest a thorough search of all the chamberpots. ~ Lisa Kleypas

Spook smiled. Elend is a forgetful scholar - twice as bad as Sazed ever was. He gets lost in his books and forgets about meeting he himself called. He only dresses with any sense of fashion because a Terriswoman bought him a new wardrobe. War has change him some, but on the inside, I think he's still just a dreamer caught in a world with too much violence. ~ Brandon Sanderson

Blessed are the forgetful, for they get the better even of their blunders. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

Winter kept us warm, covering Earth in forgetful snow ~ T. S. Eliot

Yet, when the boy himself assumes married life, he will honor his mother above his wife, and show her often a real affection and deference. Then it is that the woman comes into her own, ruling indoors with an iron hand, stoutly maintaining the ancient tradition, and, forgetful of her former misery, visiting upon the slender shoulders of her little daughters-in-law all the burdens and the wrath that fell upon her own young back. But one higher step is perhaps reserved for her. With each grandson laid in her arms she is again exalted. The family line is secure. Her husband's soul is protected. Proud is she among women. Blessed be the gods! ~ Katherine Mayo

Ultimately, the controversy around PETA may have less to do with the organization than with those of us who stand in judgment of it - that is, with the unpleasant realization that "those PETA people" have stood up for the values we have been too cowardly or forgetful to defend ourselves. ~ Jonathan Safran Foer

It had not seemed to matter that Rose was only eight years old.
"More than eight," said Rose. "Nearly nine."
"Darling Rose, even almost nearly nine-year-old's don't fall in love," said forgetful Caddy.
Caddy tried very hard to comfort Rose when Tom had left. It was not an easy job. It was like trying to comfort a small, unhappy tiger.
"Who said anything about falling in love?" growled Rose crossly. "Falling! Falling is by accident! I didn't fall in anything!"
"Oh. Right. Sorry, Posy Rose."
"And I am definitely not in love! ~ Hilary McKay

But we believe that the Octavo must be read to avert catastrophe - otherwise why did the Creator leave it behind?" "Perhaps He was just forgetful," suggested the astrologer. ~ Terry Pratchett

Yoga makes my day better as I am less likely to fall victim to my otherwise foolish & forgetful mind. ~ Jason Mraz

I cannot exist without you - I am forgetful of every thing but seeing you again - my Life seems to stop there - I see no further. You have absorb'd me. I have a sensation at the present moment as though I were dissolving ... I have been astonished that Men could die Martyrs for religion - I have shudder'd at it - I shudder no more - I could be martyr'd for my Religion - Love is my religion - I could die for that - I could die for you. My creed is Love and you are its only tenet - You have ravish'd me away by a Power I cannot resist. ~ John Keats

Mother nature is a fickle and forgetful bitch," she snapped. "She needs a helping hand and I am trying to hurry her along for their sake. ~ Sabrina Jeffries

You can't change the masses. They will always be the same: dumb, gluttonous and forgetful. ~ Joseph Goebbels

As a nine-year-old, I was sorry for everything. "Sonie, you left the refrigerator open!" "Sorry." "Sonya, why is your coat on the couch?" "Sorry." "Sonya, did you get grape jelly on the white pantsuit I paid good money for?" "Sorry, sorry, sorry..." A litany of apologies for my ever clumsy, messy, forgetful self, who spilled evidence of such all over the house. "Sorry" was my way of gathering up the spill. ~ Sonya Renee Taylor

She was undergoing daily radiation treatments, which were physically draining and made her forgetful. "In any version of picturing this moment - that fantasy of what you want to be - I would have been strong, smart, and inspiring confidence," she told me. "I wanted to be a role model in that perfect 'put together' sense. Instead, I told them I had cancer and would need their support." Their ~ Sheryl Sandberg

We become forgetful of the ego when we think of the body as dedicated to the service of others - the body with which most complacently we identify the ego. ~ Swami Vivekananda

Now his work-mates pitied him, although they tried not to show it, and it was generally arranged that he was given jobs which allowed him to work alone. The smell of ink, and the steady rhythm of the press, then induced in him a kind of peace - it was the peace he felt when he arrived early, at a time when he might be the only one to see the morning light as it filtered through the works or to hear the sound of his footsteps echoing through the old stone building. At such moments he was forgetful of himself and thus of others until he heard their voices, raised in argument or in greeting, and he would shrink into himself again. At other times he would stand slightly to one side and try to laugh at their jokes, but when they talked about sex he became uneasy and fell silent for it seemed to him to be a fearful thing. He still remembered how the girls in the schoolyard used to chant,

Kiss me, kiss me if you can
I will put you in my pan,
Kiss me, kiss me as you said
I will fry you till you're dead

And when he thought of sex, it was as of a process which could tear him limb from limb. He knew from his childhood reading that, if he ran into the forest, there would be a creature lying in wait for him. ~ Peter Ackroyd

It's easy to be forgetful when you're grieving, even forget those things that you believe most people wouldn't. ~ Liz Fichera

His was cancer of the left lung; she had lost two breasts. Her grey eyes narrowed but did not tear when she said brightly, 'I'm not forgetful, they're not misplaced boobs, you understand. They're gone. ~ Henry H. Roth

Corey Bryant sank into a great forgetful river, and that river was time, and its waters were red. ~ Stephen King

Meek young men grow up in libraries, believing it their duty to accept the views which Cicero, which Locke, which Bacon, have given, forgetful that Cicero, Locke, and Bacon were only young men in libraries, when they wrote these books. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

The debt immense of endless gratitude, So burthensome, still paying, still to owe; Forgetful what from him I still receivd, And understood not that a grateful mind By owing owes not, but still pays, at once Indebted and dischargd; what burden then? ~ John Milton

Jem was safe from her, and he would ride away with a song on his lips and a laugh at her expense, forgetful of her, and of his brother, and of God; while she dragged through the years, sullen and bitter, the stain of silence marking her, coming in the end to ridicule as a soured spinster who had been kissed once in her life and could not forget it. ~ Daphne Du Maurier

Alcohol does not a change a person's fundamental value system. People's personalities when intoxicated, even though somewhat altered, still bear some relationship to who they are when sober. When you are drunk you may behave in ways that are silly or embarrassing; you might be overly familiar or tactlessly honest, or perhaps careless or forgetful. But do you knock over little old ladies for a laugh? Probably not. Do you sexually assault the clerk at the convenience store? Unlikely. People's conduct while intoxicated continues to be governed by their core foundation of beliefs and attitudes, even though there is some loosening of the structure. Alcohol encourages people to let loose what they have simmering below the surface.
ABUSERS MAKE CONSCIOUS CHOICES EVEN WHILE INTOXICATED ~ Lundy Bancroft

Hermes's shoulders sagged. "They'll try, Percy. Oh, we'll all try to keep our promise. And maybe for a while things will get better. But we gods have never been good at keeping oaths. You were born because of a broken promise, eh? Eventually we'll become forgetful. We always do."
"You can change."
Hermes laughed. "After three thousand years, you think the gods can change their nature?"
"Yeah," I said. "I do. ~ Rick Riordan

Till now they send him dreams and no more deed;
So doth he flame again with might for action,
Forgetful of the council of the elders,
Forgetful that who rules doth no more battle,
Forgetful that such might no more cleaves to him
So doth he flame again toward valiant doing. ~ Ezra Pound

You can't not help people just because they're stupid or forgetful or unpleasant... If I don't help them, who will? ~ Terry Pratchett

When Augustus Townsend died in Georgia near the Florida line, he rose up above the barn where he had died, up above the trees and the crumbling smokehouse and the little family house nearby, and he walked away quick-like, toward Virginia. He discovered that when people were above it all they walked faster, as much as a hundred times faster than when they were confined to the earth. And so he reached Virginia in little or no time. He came to the house he had built for his family, for Mildred his wife and Henry his son, and he opened and went through the door. He thought she might be at the kitchen table, unable to sleep and drinking something to ease her mind. But he did not find his wife there. Augustus went upstairs and found Mildred sleeping in their bed. He looked at her for a long time, certainly as long as it would have taken him, walking up above it all, to walk to Canada and beyond. Then he went to the bed, leaned over and kissed her left breast.
The kiss went through the breast, through skin and bone, and came to the cage that protected the heart. Now the kiss, like so many kisses, had all manner ofkeys, but it, like so many kisses, was forgetful, and it could not find the right key to the cage. So in the end, frustrated, desperate, the kiss squeezed through the bars and kissed Mildred's heart. She woke immediately and she knew her husband was gone forever. All breath went and she was seized with such a pain that she had to come to her feet. But the room and the ~ Edward P. Jones

As I am both lazy and forgetful, I can't take proper care of too many things. That's why I want to cherish properly the things I love. ~ Marie Kondo

Have you not love enough to bear with me, when that rash humor which my mother gave me makes me forgetful. ~ William Shakespeare

To the sick man the physician when he enters seems to have three faces, those of a man, a devil, a god. When the physician first comes and announces the safety of the patient, then the sick man says: Behold a God or a guardian angel! ~ John Owen

Two things happen when you get to be old. One, you gather experience and knowledge. You learn from your mistakes, and thereby offer wisdom to others. The second thing that happens is that you grow forgetful, ornery and senile, and when you offer advice, well, you sometimes just don't know what you're talking about. Often it's hard for everyone-including me-to know the difference. ~ Camron Wright

We don't want to admit that we do not stand alone, that we always rely on something that transcends us, some system of ideas and powers in which we are embedded and which support us. This power is not always obvious. It need not be overtly a god or openly a stronger person, but it can be the power of an all-absorbing activity, a passion, a dedication to a game, a way of life, that like a comfortable web keeps a person buoyed up and ignorant of himself, of the fact that he does not rest on his own center. All of us are driven to be supported in a self-forgetful way, ignorant of what energies we really draw on, of the kind of lie we have fashioned in order to live securely and serenely. Augustine was a master analyst of this, as were Kierkegaard, Scheler, and Tillich in our day. They saw that man could strut and boast all he wanted, but that he really drew his "courage to be" from a god, a string of sexual conquests, a Big Brother, a flag, the proletariat, and the fetish of money and the size of a bank balance. ~ Ernest Becker

As he left, he decided not to go back, as it was too easy to lose himself in there, as if the woman had cast a forgetful spell over the place. ~ Sarah Holman

Pandora decided to take another tack. "You do not want to marry me, my lord. I would be the worst wife imaginable. I'm forgetful and stubborn, and I can never sit still for more than five minutes. I'm always doing things I shouldn't. I eavesdrop on other people, I shout and run in public, and I'm a clumsy dancer. And I've lowered my character with a great deal of unwholesome reading material." Pausing to draw breath, she noticed that Lord St. Vincent didn't appear properly impressed by her list of faults. "Also, my legs are skinny. Like a stork's. ~ Lisa Kleypas

Sometimes all you need is to be remembered, especially in a place where it's so easy to forget. ~ Emory R. Frie

Over time events trickle out of the minds of forgetful, thoughtless people, and so, since they retain and conserve nothing, the empty space within them, that should be filled with good things, is filled instead with hopes, so that they neglect the present and look to the future, despite the fact that fortune may yet foil the future, whereas the present cannot be taken away. ~ Plutarch

Is there anything more tedious than the often repeated tales of the old and forgetful? ~ Charles Caleb Colton

I'm insane, not forgetful. ~ Rachel Caine

A truly gospel-humble person is not a self-hating person or a self-loving person, but a gospel-humble person. The truly gospel-humble person is a self-forgetful person whose ego is just like his or her toes. It just works. It does not draw attention to itself. The toes just work; the ego just works. Neither draws attention to itself. Here is one little test. The self-forgetful person would never be hurt particularly badly by criticism. It would not devastate them, it would not keep them up late, it would not bother them. Why? Because a person who is devastated by criticism is putting too much value on what other people think, on other people's opinions. ~ Timothy Keller

But what kind of love is this that is so unaware of itself that it can be hidden until the day of judgement? The answer is obvious. Because love is hidden it cannot be a visible virtue or a habit which can be acquired. Take heed, it says, that you do not exchange true love for an amiable virtuousness, a human "quality." Genuine love is always self-forgetful in the true sense of the word. But if we are to have it, our old man must die with all his virtues and qualities, and this can only be done where the disciple forgets self and clings solely to Christ. ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer

But gradually we learn something very precious under the tutelage of these wounds. We learn a compassion for others that replaces judging, self-loathing, and the compulsion to find someone to blame. We learn a reverent joy before our wounds that replaces the condemnation of and comparison of ourselves with others that used to fuel our anxiety. We learn that the consummation of self-esteem is self-forgetful abandonment to the Silence of God that gives birth to loving service of all who struggle. ~ Martin Laird

No, no, I will not live among the wild scenes of nature, the enemy of all that lives. I will seek the towns - Rome, the capital of the world, the crown of man's achievements. Among its storied streets, hallowed ruins, and stupendous remains of human exertion, I shall not, as here, find every thing forgetful of man; trampling on his memory, defacing his works, proclaiming from hill to hill, and vale to vale, - by the torrents freed from the boundaries which he imposed - by the vegetation liberated from the laws which he enforced - by his habitation abandoned to mildew and weeds, that his power is lost, his race annihilated for ever. ~ Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

How cruel memory is, forgetful memory that drops whole lives out without a qualm! ~ May Sarton

Whatever their story, Eve was breathing easy now - for the moment forgetful, vulnerable, at peace. It's a purposeful irony of life, I suppose, that we never get to see ourselves in that state. We can only pay witness to our waking reflection, which to one degree or another is always fretting or afraid. Maybe that's why young parents find it so beguiling to spy on their children when they're fast asleep. ~ Amor Towles

I should acquaint the reader with the basic principles of the mythology I adhered to then. I believed ... that inanimate objects were no less fallible than people. They, too, could be forgetful. And, if you had enough patience, you could catch them by surprise. ~ Stanislaw Lem

The appearance of mediocrity is often useful in life because it weakens tautly strung strings and sobers up people's self-confident or self-forgetful feelings, reminding them how close they are to mediocrity as well. ~ Ivan Turgenev

Of the wickedness of the world he was too forgetful. To discover evil in a new friend is to most people only an additional experience: to him it was ever a surprise. ~ Thomas Hardy

Boy and Egg
Every few minutes, he wants
to march the trail of flattened rye grass
back to the house of muttering
hens. He too could make
a bed in hay. Yesterday the egg so fresh
it felt hot in his hand and he pressed it
to his ear while the other children
laughed and ran with a ball, leaving him,
so little yet, too forgetful in games,
ready to cry if the ball brushed him,
riveted to the secret of birds
caught up inside his fist,
not ready to give it over
to the refrigerator
or the rest of the day. ~ Naomi Shihab Nye

These are very unskillful comparisons to represent so precious a thing, but I am not clever enough to think out any more: the real truth is that joy makes the soul so forgetful of itself, and of everything, that it is conscious of nothing, and able to speak of nothing, save of that which proceeds from its joy ... Let us join with this soul, my daughters all. Why should we want to be more sensible than she? What can give us greater pleasure than to do as she does? And may all the creatures join with us for ever and ever. Amen, amen, amen. ~ Mother Teresa

Daily fervent prayers seeking forgiveness and special help and direction are essential to our lives and the nourishment of our testimonies. When we become hurried, repetitive, casual, or forgetful in our prayers, we tend to lose the closeness of the Spirit, which is so essential in the continual direction we need to successfully manage the challenges of our everyday lives. Family prayer every morning and night adds additional blessings and power to our individual prayers and to our testimonies. ~ Donald L. Staheli

I know the South claims that it has spent millions for the education of the blacks, and that it has of its own free will shouldered this awful burden. It seems to be forgetful of the fact that these millions have been taken from the public tax funds for education, and that the law of political economy which recognizes the land owner as the one who really pays the taxes is not tenable. It would be just as reasonable for the relatively few land owners of Manhattan to complain that they had to stand the financial burden of the education of the thousands and thousands of children whose parents pay rent for tenements and flats. Let the millions of producing and consuming Negroes be taken out of the South, and it would be quickly seen how much less of public funds there would be to appropriate for education or any other purpose. ~ James Weldon Johnson

Tukum is at times forgetful about his pigs, being readily distracted by other children, dragonflies, puddles of water, and wild foods.
Nevertheless, Tukem is a very proud little boy, and since his nami lives Lukigin, where his mother has already gone, he has decided to go away for good. This morning he put on his thin neck the cowrie collar with its brief string of shells which is his sole belonging, he smeared his body with pig grease until it shone, in order to make a fine impression at Lukigin ... Then he set off alone on the long journey in the sun across the woods and fields, a small brown figure with a flat head and pot belly. His back was turned on Wuperainma, his pigs and his friends, his childhood, and he clutched a frail stick in his hand. ~ Peter Matthiessen

Ah, is this thing that you call tinola a variety of lotus which makes people - er - forgetful? ~ Jose Rizal

Man is only a forgetful mortal, but God - He sees, hears and remembers everything. ~ Suzy Kassem

The Christian lives by grace as Abba's child, utterly rejecting the God who catches people by surprise in a moment of weakness - the God incapable of smiling at our awkward mistakes, the God who does not accept a seat at our human festivities, the God who says "You will pay for that," the God incapable of understanding that children will always get dirty and be forgetful, the God always snooping around after sinners. At the same time, the child of the Father rejects the pastel-colored patsy God who promises never to rain on our parade. ~ Brennan Manning

The mind unlearned in reverence, says Bonaventure (1221-1274), is in danger of becoming so captivated by the spectacle of beings as to be altogether forgetful of being in itself; and our mechanistic approach to the world is nothing but ontological obliviousness translated into a living tradition. ~ David Bentley

I routinely inform people when I meet them that I am like a real life version of Dory the fish, as I am very forgetful and have problems tracking conversations. ~ Steven Magee

Again Satan was defeated, and again he resorted to deception, in the hope of converting his defeat into a victory. To stir up rebellion in the fallen race, he now represented God as unjust in having permitted man to transgress his law. "Why," said the artful tempter, "when God knew what would be the result, did he permit man to be placed on trial, to sin, and bring in misery and death?" And the children of Adam, forgetful of the long-suffering mercy that had granted man another trial, regardless of the amazing, the awful sacrifice which his rebellion had cost the King of heaven, gave ear to the tempter, and murmured against the only Being who could save them from the destructive power of Satan. ~ Ellen G. White

Beyond a given point man is not helped by more "knowing," but only by living and doing in a partly self-forgetful way. As Goethe put it, we must plunge into experience and then reflect on the meaning of it. All reflection and no plunging drives us mad; all plunging and no reflection, and we are brutes. ~ Ernest Becker

An egotism like an eggshell is a thing from which to escape; the art of life is that escape. The fundamental art of life is to recover the sense of that great self-forgetful continuous life from which we have individually budded off. Many people have done this through religion, which begins with a tremendous clamour to some saviour god or other to recognise us and ends in our recognition of him; ~ W.N.P. Barbellion

The first sentence of Ralph Waldo Emerson's that reached me still jolts me every time I run into it. "Meek young men," he wrote in "The American Scholar," "grow up in libraries believing it their duty to accept the views which Cicero, which Locke, which Bacon have given, forgetful that Cicero, Locke, and Bacon were only young men in libraries when they wrote those books… ~ Robert D. Richardson Jr.

I beg your pardon, but don't cry for me, Argentina. A little rain's bound to fall on those roses of yours - a dribble, a drizzle, a deluge. Think you're the only one with wet flowers?
A tear rolls down my cheek and some of the heaviness I've been carrying trickles out with it.
Why me?
Why pain? Why suffering? Why heartache?
Because we're a forgetful bunch, always busy with the daily grind. We overlook the good things until we're confronted with the bad. There but for the grace of God...and all that jazz.
Life is how we measure it. And people have different currencies. Some are tangible. Others are carried in your heart. Like the woman beside me, I've been dwelling on what I've lost, not what I have. Her riches vanished in a moment. Mine, thankfully, remain - wonderful childhood memories, a caring husband, a baby on the way.
Wet roses? They'll dry. Meanwhile, I'll enjoy the rest of my garden. ~ Roxy Boroughs