Part of the function of memory is to forget; the omni-retentive mind will break down and produce at best an idiot savant who can recite a telephone book, and at worst a person to whom every grudge and slight is as yesterday's.
Interpretation
Memory serves a dual purpose of retaining and forgetting information, which is essential for a healthy mind.
In this quote, Christopher Hitchens emphasizes the importance of forgetting as a critical aspect of memory. He argues that a mind that retains everything becomes burdensome, likening such an individual to an 'idiot savant' with an overwhelming capacity for recall yet devoid of deeper understanding or peace. Thus, he suggests that the ability to forget is vital for emotional well-being and interpersonal relationships.
In practice
In a discussion about the importance of mental health, one could say, 'As Christopher Hitchens noted, 'Part of the function of memory is to forget.' This highlights the need to let go of past grievances for a healthier mind.'
In a public dialogue with Salman in London he [Edward Said] had once described the Palestinian plight as one where his people, expelled and dispossessed by Jewish victors, were in the unique historical position of being 'the victims of the victims': there was something quasi-Christian, I thought, in the apparent humility of that statement.
What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.
Never ask while you are doing it if what you are doing is fun. Don't introduce even your most reliably witty acquaintance as someone who will set the table on a roar.
[E]xceptional claims demand exceptional evidence.
The worst days are when you feel foggy in the head - chemo-brain they call it. It's awful because you feel boring. As well as bored. And stupid. And resigned.
Let me tell you something: for hundreds of thousands of years, this kind of discussion would have been impossible to have, or those like us would have been having it at the risk of our lives. Religion now comes to us in this smiley-face, ingratiating way — because it’s had to give so much more ground and because we know so much more. But you’ve got no right to forget the way it behaved when it was strong, and when it really did believe that it had God on its side.
No one really knows why they are alive until they know what they'd die for.
I wanted to invent myself as a fictional character. And I did, and it has caused a great deal of confusion.
But as a Scot with a lifelong love of Scotland and the arts, I believe the opportunity of independence is too good to miss. Simply put there is no more creative an act than creating a new nation.
Whatever that be which thinks, understands, wills, and acts, it is something celestial and divine.
Science regards man as an aggregation of atoms temporarily united by a mysterious force called the life-principle. To the materialist, the only difference between a living and a dead body is that in the one case that force is active, in the other latent.
Something of vengeance I had tasted for the first time; as aromatic wine it seemed, on swallowing, warm and racy: its after-flavour, metallic and corroding, gave me a sensation as if I had been poisoned.
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