Recollect Quotes & Sayings

I distrust summaries, any kind of gliding through time, any too great a claim that one is in control of what one recounts; I think someone who claims to understand but who is obviously calm, someone who claims to write with emotion recollected in tranquility, is a fool and a liar. To understand is to tremble. To recollect is to reenter and be riven. An acrobat after spinning through the air in a mockery of flight stands erect on his perch and mockingly takes his bow as if what he is being applauded for was easy for him and cost him nothing, although meanwhile he is covered with sweat and his smile is edged with a relief chilling to think about; he is indulging in a show-business style; he is pretending to be superhuman. I am bored with that and with here it has brought us. I admire the authority of being on one's knees in front of the event.
- Innocence, from My Mistress's Sparrow is Dead — Harold Brodkey

We went back to the hotel to take our clothes off immediately, as though this were our only purpose, and I recollect that this was about loneliness, as far as I was concerned. The thing you did to alleviate the loneliness was to take off your clothes and touch someone, even if you didn't really know the person well. I could just as easily have asked her to let me lie down on top of her fully clothed on a couch in the lobby of the Hampton Inn and Suites, but I didn't know that then. I thought I was supposed to take off my clothes, and I wanted her to take off her clothes, and somehow this seemed a foregone conclusion, perhaps because each of us had started with no face and no body, as a condition of modern life, and now we were here and we wanted to celebrate the fact that we were not hideous, not entirely, and we were in the flesh. — Rick Moody

Considering these limitations, it is quite astonishing how irreligious the Founders actually were. You might not easily guess, for example, who was the author of the following words: Oh! Lord! Do you think that a Protestant Popedom is annihilated in America? Do you recollect, or have you ever attended to the ecclesiastical Strifes in Maryland Pensilvania [sic], New York, and every part of New England? What a mercy it is that these People cannot whip and crop, and pillory and roast, as yet in the U.S.! If they could they would ... . There is a germ of religion in human nature so strong that whenever an order of men can persuade the people by flattery or terror that they have salvation at their disposal, there can be no end to fraud, violence, or usurpation. That was John Adams, in relatively mild form. — Christopher Hitchens

Attempting to circumvent this declaration, Hunter recalled that Charles I of England had entered repeatedly into arrangements with his adversaries despite ongoing hostilities. "I do not profess to be posted in history," Lincoln answered. "On all such matters I will turn you over to Seward. All I distinctly recollect about the case of Charles I, is, that he lost his head in the end. — Doris Kearns Goodwin

Two Seasons, it is said, exist-
The Summer of the Just,
And this of Ours, diversified
With Prospect, and with Frost-
May not our Second with its First
So infinite compare
That We but recollect the one
The other to prefer? — Emily Dickinson

But you must recollect that every time you forget, and are impatient or selfish, you chill them and drive them farther away. They are loving little things, and are so sorry for you now, that nothing you do makes them angry. But by and by they will get used to having you sick, and if you haven't won them as friends, they will grow away from you as they get older. — Susan Coolidge

Scarcely two hundred years back can Fame recollect articulately at all; and there she but maunders and mumbles. — Thomas Carlyle

We practice conscious forgetting by refusing to summon up the fiery material, we refuse to recollect. To forget is an active, not a passive endeavor. It means to not haul up certain materials, or turn them over and over, to not work oneself up by repetitive thought, picture, or emotion. — Clarissa Pinkola Estes

My dear, dear aunt,' she rapturously cried, what delight! what felicity! You give me fresh life and vigour. Adieu to disappointment and spleen. What are men to rocks and mountains? Oh! what hours of transport we shall spend! And when we do return, it shall not be like other travellers, without being able to give one accurate idea of any thing. We will know where we have gone
we will recollect what we have seen. Lakes, mountains, and rivers shall not be jumbled together in our imaginations; nor, when we attempt to describe any particular scene, will we begin quarrelling about its relative situation. Let our first effusions be less insupportable than those of the generality of travellers. — Jane Austen

It was with some difficulty that I got through the multiplication tables. The fact that I recollect nothing more of those days than having learnt, in company with other boys, to call our teacher all kinds of names, would strongly suggest that my intellect must have been sluggish, and my memory raw. — Mahatma Gandhi

I was for two years a pupil at the Model School in Fort street which was then conducted upon the Irish national system, and if any special religious instruction was given in connection with that system, I do not recollect it. — Edmund Barton

When you recollect something which belonged in an earlier chapter, do not go back, but jam it in where you are . Discursiveness does not hurt an autobiography in the least. — Mark Twain

The history of a battle, is not unlike the history of a ball. Some individuals may recollect all the little events of which the great result is the battle won or lost, but no individual can recollect the order in which, or the exact moment at which, they occurred, which makes all the difference as to their value or importance.. — Duke Of Wellington

It is said that brother Joseph in his lifetime declared that the Elders of this Church should step forth at a particular time when the Constitution should be in danger, and rescue it, and save it. This may be so; but I do not recollect that he said exactly so. I believe he [Joseph] said something like this - that the time would come when the Constitution and the country would be in danger of an overthrow; and said he, If the Constitution be saved at all, it will be by the Elders of this Church. I believe this is about the language, as nearly as I can recollect it. — Joseph Smith Jr.

I gave way to a wave of home-sickness that almost shames me now when I recollect it. I find it impossible in cold blood, and at this distance, to put into words the longing that shook me. I have forgotten the pain in the neck, but never will I forget the pain in my heart. — H.V. Morton

He got a good glass for six hundred dollars.
His new job gave him leisure for stargazing.
Often he bid me come and have a look
Up the brass barrel, velvet black inside,
At a star quaking in the other end.
I recollect a night of broken clouds
And underfoot snow melted down to ice,
And melting further in the wind to mud.
Bradford and I had out the telescope.
We spread our two legs as it spread its three,
Pointed our thoughts the way we pointed it,
And standing at our leisure till the day broke,
Said some of the best things we ever said.
That telescope was christened the Star-Splitter,
Because it didn't do a thing but split
A star in two or three the way you split
A globule of quicksilver in your hand
With one stroke of your finger in the middle.
It's a star-splitter if there ever was one,
And ought to do some good if splitting stars
'Sa thing to be compared with splitting wood. — Robert Frost

I recollect it was settled by general consent that India was quite a misrepresented country, and had nothing objectionable in it, but a tiger or two, and a little heat in the warm part of the day. — Charles Dickens

El duende is literally the goblin wind or force behind a person's actions and creative life, including the way they walk, the sound of their voice, even the way they lift their little finger. It is a term used in flamenco dance, and is also used to describe the ability to "think" in poetic images. Among Latina curanderas who recollect story, it is understood as the ability to be filled with spirit that is more than one's own spirit. Whether one is the artist or whether one is the watcher, listener, or reader, when el duende is present, one sees it, hears it, reads it, feels it underneath the dance, the music, the words, the art; one knows it is there. When el duende is not present, one knows that too. — Clarissa Pinkola Estes

We must come to understand the deep mutual connection or kinship between the various forms of our spirituality. We must recollect our original spiritual and moral substance, which grew out of the same essential experience of humanity. I believe that this is the only way to achieve a genuine renewal of our sense of responsibility for ourselves and for the world. And at the same time, it is the only way to achieve a deeper understanding among cultures that will enable them to work together in a truly ecumenical way to create a new order for the world. — Vaclav Havel

It was hard to imagine him in love. I knew that he and my mother must have once felt passion, since that was what love entailed, but I was grateful that over time the madness had evolved into something more like friendship or a business partnership, something I myself could be an integral part of. Even seeing my father recollect passion was disconcerting. — Richard Russo

If we turn now to such vestiges of cult as are associated otherwise than with time and season, we discover a definite recognition of the survival of these nearly a century ago. Keightley, the old fairy mythologist, who did such yeoman service in the collection of much valuable elfin lore, says, as long ago as 1850, when referring to the confused nature of his subject: 'Indeed it could not well be otherwise, when we recollect that all these beings (the larger and greater fairies) once formed part of ancient and exploded systems of religion and that it is chiefly in the traditions of the peasantry that their memorial has been preserved. — Lewis Spence

A commander should recollect, that, whether it be he himself, or chiefly his officers and crew, who perform any useful public service, he invariably reaps at least his full share of the credit. His real interest, therefore, must always be, not merely to draw about him the ablest men he can induce to follow him, but to allow them the utmost latitude of independent action and responsibility, and as much of the merit of success as possible. If he persevere sincerely in this course, he will soon discover that the more he endeavours to remove the credit from himself, or, rather, to divide it handsomely with those who are acting with him, the more will he generally find the merit given back to himself. I — Basil Hall

My heart aches for you! But don't despair! I am persuaded you will come about! Recollect what the poet says! I'm not sure which poet, but very likely it was Shakespeare, because it generally is, though why I can't imagine! — Georgette Heyer

Oh, Mr. Cuthbert," she whispered, that place we came through
that white place
what was it?"
"Well now, you must mean the Avenue," said Matthew after a few moments' profound reflection. "It is a kind of pretty place."
"Pretty? Oh, PRETTY doesn't seem the right word to use. Nor beautiful, either. They don't go far enough. Oh, it was wonderful
wonderful. It's the first thing I ever saw that couldn't be improved upon by imagination. It just satisfies me here"
she put one hand on her breast
"it made a queer funny ache and yet it was a pleasant ache. Did you ever have an ache like that, Mr. Cuthbert?"
"Well now, I just can't recollect that I ever had."
"I have it lots of time
whenever I see anything royally beautiful. But they shouldn't call that lovely place the Avenue. There is no meaning in a name like that. They should call it
let me see
the White Way of Delight. Isn't that a nice imaginative name? — L.M. Montgomery

This speaker reminds me of my childhood in Budapest. There were gypsy magicians who came to town to entertain us children. But as I recollect, there was one important difference: the gypsy only seemed to violate the laws of nature, he never really violated them! — Theodore Von Karman

But my gloom did not lessen. I knew that I'd had a bad dream, and I stood in the dark trying to recollect it. The second I closed my eyes, I was with the dead. They did things words cannot express. They spoke madness. ("Hanka") — Isaac Bashevis Singer

But the brain does much more than just recollect it inter-compares, it synthesizes, it analyzes, it generates abstractions. The simplest thought like the concept of the number one has an elaborate logical underpinning. The brain has its own language for testing the structure and consistency of the world. — Carl Sagan

Art has always been my salvation. And my gods are Herman Melville, Emily Dickinson, Mozart. I believe in them with all my heart. And when Mozart is playing in my room, I am in conjunction with something I can't explain - I don't need to. I know that if there's a purpose for life, it was for me to hear Mozart. Or if I walk in the woods and I see an animal, the purpose of my life was to see that animal. I can recollect it, I can notice it. I'm here to take note of. And that is beyond my ego, beyond anything that belongs to me, an observer, an observer. — Maurice Sendak

I had always known in my heart that the experience would never leave me, that it was now woven into my very fibers, an inextricable part of my past, but I had hoped never to have to recollect it, consciously, and in full, ever again. Like an old wound, it gave off a faint twinge now and again, but less and less often, less and less painfully, as the years went on and my happiness, sanity and equilibrium were assured. Of late, it had been like the outermost ripple on a pool, merely the faint memory of a memory. — Susan Hill

Apparently Henry had all the qualities necessary to make him popular in Virginian society, at least according to Jefferson: "His manners had something of coarseness in them; his passion was music, dancing and pleasantly. He excelled in the last, and it attached everyone to him. You ask some account of his mind and information at this period; but you will recollect that we were almost continually engaged in the usual revelries of the season. The occasion perhaps, as much as his idle disposition, prevented his engaging in any conversation which might give the measure either of his mind or information." While — Charles River Editors

We must raise the salaries of our operators or they will all be taken from us, that is, all that are good for anything. You will recollect that, at the first meeting of the Board of Directors, I took the ground that 'it was our policy to make the office of operator desirable, to pay operators well and make their situation so agreeable that intelligent men and men of character will seek the place and dread to lose it.' I still think so, and, depend upon it, it is the soundest economy to act on this principle. — Samuel Morse

It is easy to recollect the good things of life, the times when one's heart rejoices and expands, when everything is enfolded in kindness and love; it is easy to recollect the fineness of life-how noble one was, how generous one felt, what courage one showed in the face of adversity. — Oliver Sacks

When I recollect her, I see a long list of colors, but it's the three in which I saw her in the flesh that resonate the most. Sometimes I manage to float far above those three moments. I hang suspended, until a septic truth bleeds toward clarity.
That's when I see them formulate:
THE COLORS
RED: [rectangle]
WHITE: [circle]
BLACK: [swastika]
They fall on top of each other. The scribbled signature black, onto the blinding global white, onto the thick soupy red. — Markus Zusak

Never shall I recollect the occasion he gave me of displeasure, without feeling it renewed. — Fanny Burney

So long his name and face are lost in memory-s afterglow; Nor do I recollect of pride or joy or doubt or fright Or other circumstance which marked that time for solo flight The cryptic words alone endure : he said -you're on your own- And down through time I've found it so - the test-s to walk alone — Gill Robb Wilson

To what level does your patriarchal blessing reach in your life? Can you recollect the time you received it and recover any of the spirit of the occasion? Do you in quiet moments ponder it? Does Karl G.Maeser's phrase, "paragraphs from the book of our possibilities" rest upon you with a sense of mission so that, as President Heber J.Grant exemplified, "you "dream nobly and manfully" and prepare ceaselessly? Do you ever think of Heber C.Kimball's faith that you can "write your own patriarchal blessing" under inspiration, for, saith the Lord, "No good thing will I withhold ... — Truman G. Madsen

I don't quite recollect how many tumblers of whiskey toddy each man drank after supper; but this I know, that about one o'clock in the morning, the baillie's grown-up son became insensible while attempting the first verse of 'Willie brewed a peck o' maut'; and he having been, for half an hour before, the only other man visible above the mahogany, it occurred to my uncle that it was almost time to think about going. — Charles Dickens

Take comfort, and recollect however little you and I may know, God knows; He knows Himself and you and me and all things; and His mercy is over all His works. — Charles Kingsley

We ask: Why suicide? We search for reasons, causes, and so on ... We follow the course of the life he has now so suddenly terminated as far back as we can. For days we are preoccupied with the question: Why suicide? We recollect details. And yet we must say that everything in the suicide's life- for now we know that all his life he was a suicide, led a suicide's existence- is part of the cause, the reason, for his suicide. — Thomas Bernhard

People never will recollect that mere learning and mere cleverness are of next to no value in life, while energy and intellectual grip, the things that are inborn and cannot be taught, are everything. — Thomas Huxley

I often find that a novel, even a well-written and compelling novel, can become a blur to me soon after I've finished reading it. I recollect perfectly the feeling of reading it, the mood I occupied, but I am less sure about the narrative details. It is almost as if the book were, as Wittgenstein said of his propositions, a ladder to be climbed and then discarded after it has served its purpose. — Sven Birkerts

They say that when you remember something, you are really remembering the last time you remembered it. Each time you recollect a memory, you change it, ever so slightly, shading it with new information, new feelings. — Taylor Jenkins Reid

On every question of construction (of the Constitution) let us carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit of the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed. — Thomas Jefferson

One way to recollect the mind easily in the time of prayer, and preserve it more in tranquillity, is not to let it wander too far at other times. You should keep it strictly in the presence of God; and being accustomed to think of Him often, you will find it easy to keep your mind calm in the time of prayer, or at least to recall it from its wanderings. — Brother Lawrence

Those who knew Benjamin Franklin will recollect that his mind was forever young, his temper ever serene; science, that never grows gray, was always his mistress. He was never without an object, for when we cease to have an object, we become like an invalid in a hospital waiting for death. — Thomas Paine

Let us recollect that peace or war will not always be left to our option; that however moderate or unambitious we may be, we cannot count upon the moderation, or hope to extinguish the ambition of others. — Alexander Hamilton

Time and Nemesis will do that which I would not, were it in my power remote or immediate. You will smile at this piece of prophecy - do so, but recollect it: it is justified by all human experience. No one was ever even the involuntary cause of great evils to others, without a requital: I have paid and am paying for mine - so will you. — George Gordon Byron

I recollect a nurse called Ann,
Who carried me about the grass,
And one fine day a fine young man
Came up and kissed the pretty lass.
She did not make the least objection.
Thinks I, "Aha,
When I can talk I'll tell Mama,"
And that's my earliest recollection. — Frederick Locker-Lampson

Let no one persuade you of a single thing. Study your hunger and how to feed it. Trust in whatever sounds twist your viscera. Write in the cadences of first love, of second chances, of air raids, of outrage, of the hideous and the hilarious, of headlong acceptance or curt refusal. Make the bitter music of bumdom, the sad shanties of landlessness, cool at the equator and fluid at the pole. Set the sounds that angels make after an all-night orgy. Whatever lengthens the day, whatever gets you through the night. Make the music that you need, for need will be over, soon enough. Let your progressions predict time's end and recollect the dead as if they're all still her. Because they are. — Richard Powers

A relationship should not be measured in months or years. It's the calibre of the memories that matter. Their impact, their permanence, and the degree to which they change you. I've had relationships lasting years I can now scarcely recollect, and hours with others that feel like infinities. — Beau Taplin

Most assuredly that spirit of envious rivalry and depreciating criticism in which many English travellers have written, is greatly to be deprecated, no less than the tone of servile adulation which some writers have adopted; but our American neighbours must recollect that they provoked both the virulent spirit and the hostile caricature by the way in which some of their most popular writers of travels have led an ungenerous onslaught against our institutions and people, and the bitter tone in which their newspaper press, headed by the Tribune, indulges towards — Isabella L. Bird

There must be something very comprehensive in this phrase of 'Never mind,' for we do not recollect to have ever witnessed a quarrel in the street, at a theatre, public room, or elsewhere, in which it has not been the standard reply to all belligerent inquiries. 'Do you call yourself a gentleman, sir?' - 'Never mind, sir.' 'Did I offer to say anything to the young woman, sir?' - 'Never mind, sir.' 'Do you want your head knocked up against that wall, sir?' - 'Never mind, sir.' It is observable, too, that there would appear to be some hidden taunt in this universal 'Never mind,' which rouses more indignation in the bosom of the individual addressed, than the most lavish abuse could possibly awaken. — Charles Dickens

Recollect that the Almighty, who gave the dog to be companion of our pleasures and our toils, hath invested him with a nature noble and incapable of deceit. — Walter Scott

The memories which come to us through music are not accompanied by any regrets; for a moment music gives us back the pleasures it retraces, and we feel them again rather than recollect them. — Madame De Stael

I wish you would recollect that Painting and Punctuality mix like Oil and Vinegar, and that Genius and regularity are utter Enemies and must be to the end of time. — Thomas Gainsborough

Still I should paint my own places best; painting is with me but another word for feeling, and I associate "my careless boyhood" with all that lies on the banks of the Stour; those scenes made me a painter, and I am grateful; that is, I had often thought of pictures of them before ever I touched a pencil, and your picture ['The White Horse'] is one of the strongest instance I can recollect of it. — John Constable

Those who are still afraid of men have no fear of God, and those who have fear of God have ceased to be afraid of men. All preachers of the gospel will do well to recollect this saying daily. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Pain - has an Element of Blank
It cannot recollect
When it begun - or if there were
a time when it was not -
It has no Future - but itself -
Its Infinite contain
Its Past - enlightened to perceive
New Periods - of Pain. — Emily Dickinson

As for your doctrines I am prepared to go to the Stake if requisite ... I trust you will not allow yourself to be in any way disgusted or annoyed by the considerable abuse & misrepresentation which unless I greatly mistake is in store for you ... And as to the curs which will bark and yelp - you must recollect that some of your friends at any rate are endowed with an amount of combativeness which (though you have often & justly rebuked it) may stand you in good stead - I am sharpening up my claws and beak in readiness. — Thomas Huxley

No matter how good your memory is, you can never recollect the day your heart lost its virginity. — Subhasis Das

The soul having been often born, or, as the Hindus say, 'traveling the path of existence through thousands of births' ... there is nothing of which she has not gained the knowledge; no wonder that she is able to recollect... what formerly she knew.... For inquiry and learning is reminiscence all."-Emerson. — Paramahansa Yogananda

And opening her arms wide, took my curly head within them, and gave it a good squeeze. I know it was a good squeeze, because, being very plump, whenever she made any little exertion after she was dressed, some of the buttons on the back of her gown flew off. And I recollect two bursting to the opposite side of the parlour, while she was hugging me. — Charles Dickens

We cannot even recollect the actions of our infancy, our childhood is like something written on a slate and rubbed off. — Vinoba Bhave

Our fathers founded the first secular government that was ever founded in this world. Recollect that. The first secular government - the first government that said every church has exactly the same rights and no more; every religion has the same rights, and no more. — Robert Green Ingersoll

Having renounced his native land, Sanger adopted no other. He roved about from one European capital to another, never settling anywhere for long, driven forwards by his strange, restless fancy. Usually he quartered himself upon his friends, who were accustomed to endure a great deal from him. He would stay with them for weeks, composing third acts in their spare bedrooms, producing operas which always failed financially, falling in love with their wives, conducting their symphonies, and borrowing money from hem. His preposterous family generally accompanied him. Few people could recollect quite how many children Sanger was supposed to have got, but there always seemed to be a good many and they were most shockingly brought up. — Margaret Kennedy

I stop, then, in my tracks, to recollect the awesome presence that I've left behind, the road ahead so long, my life so short, and bow my head and burst out into tears. While — Francesco Petrarca

Remember first, last and always, that before you can remember, or recollect, you must first perceive; and that perception is possible only through attention, and responds in degree to the latter. Therefore, it has truly been said that: "The great Art of Memory is Attention. — William Walker Atkinson

When we speak of the perfection of art, we must recollect what the materials are with which a painter contends with nature. For the light of the sun he has but patent yellow and white lead - for the darkest shade, umber or soot. — John Constable

Go," said the count deliberately, "go, dear friend, but promise me, if you meet with any obstacle to remember that I have some power in this world; that I am happy to use that power in the behalf of those I love; and that I love you, Morrel."
"I will remember it," said the young man, "as selfish children recollect their parents when they want their aid. When I need your assistance, and the moment may come, I will come to you, count. — Alexandre Dumas

Two were dark, and had high aquiline noses, like the Count, and great dark, piercing eyes, that seemed to be almost red when contrasted with the pale yellow moon. The other was fair, as fair as can be, with great masses of golden hair and eyes like pale sapphires. I seemed somehow to know her face, and to know it in connection with some dreamy fear, but I could not recollect at the moment how or where. All three had brilliant white teeth that shone like pearls against the ruby of their voluptuous lips. There — Bram Stoker

When an argument is over, how many weighty reasons does a man recollect which his heat and violence made him utterly forget? — Eustace Budgell

And Anne could have said much, and did long to say a little in defence of her friend's not very dissimilar claims to theirs, but her sense of personal respect to her father prevented her. She made no reply. She left it to himself to recollect, that Mrs Smith was not the only widow in Bath between thirty and forty, with little to live on, and no surname of dignity. — Jane Austen

As for clothing, to come at once to the practical part of the question, perhaps we are led oftener by the love of novelty, and a regard for the opinions of men, in procuring it, than by a true utility. Let him who has work to do recollect that the object of clothing is, first, to retain the vital heat, and secondly, in this state of society, to cover nakedness, and he may judge how much of any necessary or important work may be accomplished without adding to his wardrobe. — Henry David Thoreau

The brain does much more than recollect. It compares, synthesizes, analyzes, generates abstractions. We must figure out much more than our genes can know. That is why the brain library is some ten thousand times larger than the gene library. Our passion for learning, evident in the behaviour of every toddler, is the tool for our survival. Emotions and ritualized behaviour patterns are built deeply into us. They are part of our humanity. But they are not characteristically human. Many other animals have feelings. What distinguishes our species is thought. The cerebral cortex is a liberation. We need no longer be trapped in the genetically inherited behaviour patterns of lizards and baboons. We are, each of us, largerly responsible for what gets put into our brains, for what, as adults, we wind up caring for and knowing about. No longer at the mercy of the reptile brain, we can change ourselves. — Carl Sagan

At last the sun rose, and then my companions seemed to sleep easier. The difficulties under which they had laboured all night, and which had found utterance in the most terrific gasps and snorts, are not to be conceived. As the sun got higher, their sleep became lighter, and so they gradually one by one awoke. I recollect being very much surprised by the feint everybody made, then, of not having been to sleep at all, and by the uncommon indignation with which everyone repelled the charge. I labour under the same kind of astonishment to this day, having invariably observed that of all human weaknesses, the one to which our common nature is the least disposed to confess (I cannot imagine why) is the weakness of having gone to sleep in a coach. — Charles Dickens

And finally, at age seventy, having distinguished himself as a brilliant Secretary of State, an independent President and an eloquent member of Congress, he was to record somberly that his "whole life has been a succession of disappointments. I can scarcely recollect a single instance of success in anything that I ever undertook." Yet — John F. Kennedy

The past is but an untraceable footfall
It appears in intervals and pushes us back in time,
In those moments of grief and then suddenly vanishes.
It's often dark and ruthless.
It baffles our thoughts and seizes our peace of mind.
By making us recollect our failures, our buried expectations
And our shattered dreams
It only gives way to fleeting tears, leaving us with fruitless guilt.
It wrecks our present and ruins our future
And thus should be left where it is meant to be
It should be left behind ... — Chirag Tulsiani

There are no delusions for the dead. Dying is like waking up after a really good party, when you have one or two seconds of innocent freedom before you recollect all the things you did last night which seemed so logical and hilarious at the time, and then you remember the really amazing thing you did with a lampshade and two balloons, which had them in stitches, and now you realize you're going to have to look a lot of people in the eye today and you're sober now and so are they but you can both remember. — Terry Pratchett

How comes it that our memories are good enough to retain even the minutest details of what has befallen us, but not to recollect how many times we have recounted to the same person? — Francois De La Rochefoucauld

I think ... that I would rather recollect a life mis-spent on fragile things than spent avoiding moral debt. — Neil Gaiman

I can recollect nothing more to say at present; perhaps breakfast may assist my ideas. I was deceived
my breakfast supplied only two ideas
that the rolls were good and the butter bad. — Jane Austen

Captain Owen Hartford, at your service." He tipped his hat.
Oh, so it was going to be like this, was it? She searched her memory for a good name. "Patience Corntower. Of Thorny Hollow way."
His grin went wide. "We are well acquainted. You may not recollect me."
"But I do, sir. Quite clearly."
Something flickered in his gaze. "Would the miss be available for a short walk on the pier?"
"In the middle of a battle?" Her eyes went wide and she tried not to laugh. "Aren't you supposed to be getting something amputated?"
"Shhh." He held up a finger, eyes crinkled at the corners. "Don't break character. — Mary Jane Hathaway

Perhaps I need some shattering experience to awaken and inspire me, or at least to give me some emotion to recollect in tranquility. But how to get it? Sit here and wait for it or go out and seek it? ... I expect it will be sit and wait. — Barbara Pym

Afterwards Isabelle often wondered if the moments themselves were greater or the memory of them. At least the memory did not pass, while the moments passed all too fast. Life whizzed by; she no longer had time to recollect it. Her notebooks to this day retain the story of her desperate attempt to hold together her self, her mind, her reason, her order, her morals. — Toni Bentley

I do not want to recollect. I should be afraid of preventing the future and of allowing the past to encroach on me. It is out of the utter forgetfulness of yesterday that I create every new hour's freshness. It is never enough for me to have been happy. I do not believe in dead things and cannot distinguish between being no more and never having been. — Andre Gide

If you cannot recollect yourself continuously, do so once a day at least, in the morning or in the evening. In the morning make a resolution and in the evening examine yourself on what you have said this day, what you have done and thought, for in these things perhaps you have often offended God and those about you. — Thomas A Kempis

Someone who claims to write with emotion recollected in tranquility, is a fool and a liar. To understand is to tremble. To recollect is to re-enter and riven ... I admire the authority of being on one's knees in front of an event. — Harold Brodkey

Under this swarm of waspish self-inquiries he began to feel sorry for himself - a brilliant man trapped, a Byron tamed; and his mind wandered back to Sarah, to visual images, attempts to recollect that face, that mouth, that generous mouth. Undoubtedly it awoke some memory in him, too tenuous, perhaps too general, to trace to any source in his past; but it unsettled him and haunted him, by calling to some hidden self he hardly knew existed. He said it to himself: It is the stupidest thing, but that girl attracts me. It seemed clear to him that it was not Sarah in herself who attracted him - how could she, he was betrothed - but some emotion, some possibility she symbolized. She made him aware of a deprivation. His future had always seemed to him of vast potential; and now suddenly it was a fixed voyage to a known place. She had reminded him of that. — John Fowles

There are two aspects to being competitive; one is to do with sports, and the other is about technical skills. Being able to recollect the moves and apply them when necessary is a critical aspect. — Viswanathan Anand

Recollect that to a woman who gets her living by her pen, 'time is money,' as it is to an artist. Therefore, encroaching on her time is lessening her income. And yet how often is this done (either heedlessly or selfishly) by persons professing to be her friends, and who are habitually in the practice of interrupting her in her writing hours ... — Eliza Leslie

In the interweave of mind and body, dance is a mode that allows people to work through difficulties, anticipate the future, recollect the past, and confront the present. — Judith Lynne Hanna

The world doesn't yield to us directly, the description of the world stands in between. So, properly speaking, we are always one step removed and our experiences of the world is always a recollection of the experience. We are perennially recollecting the instant that has just happened, just passed. Re recollect, recollect, recollect. — Carlos Castaneda

Ah!' he said, slowly turning his eyes towards me. 'Well! If you was writin' to her, p'raps you'd recollect to say that Barkis was willin'; would you?' 'That Barkis is willing,' I repeated, innocently. 'Is that all the message?' 'Ye-es,' he said, considering. 'Ye-es. Barkis is willin — Charles Dickens

I returned to the front office, and found that the fire that I had made of large wood was nearly burned out. But as I turned and was about to take a seat by the fire, I received a mighty baptism of the Holy Ghost. Without any expectation of it, without ever having the thought in my mind that there was any such thing for me, without any recollection that I had ever heard the thing mentioned by any person in the world, the Holy Spirit descended upon me in a manner that seemed to go through me, body and soul. I could feel the impression, like a wave of electricity, going through and through me. Indeed it seemed to come in waves and waves of liquid love, for I could not express it in any other way. It seemed like the very breath of God. I can recollect distinctly that it seemed to fan me, like immense wings. — Charles Grandison Finney

Ancient Greek had no verb meaning "to read" as such: the verb they used, anagignsk, means "to know again," "to recollect." It refers to a memory procedure. Similarly, the Latin verb used for "to read" is lego, which means literally "to collect" or "to cull, pluck," referring also to a memory procedure (the re-collection or gathering up of material). — Mary Carruthers

Recollect, v. To recall with additions something not previously known. — Ambrose Bierce

Three things my daddy tried to learn me. 'Son', he always said, 'remember these three precepts and you can't go wrong. One, never eat at a place called Mom's. Two, never play cards with a man named Doc.'
'That's only two.'
'I can never recollect the third, and that's what worries me. — Edward Abbey

Whatever we think out, whatever we take in hand to do, should be perfectly and finally finished, that the world, if it must alter, will only have to spoil it; we have then nothing to do but unite the severed, to recollect and restore the dismembered. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

While we contemplate in all creatures, as in a mirror, those immense riches of His wisdom, justice, goodness and power, we should not meerly run them over cursorily, and, so to speak, with a fleeting glance, but we should ponder them at length, turn them over in our mind seriously and faithfully and recollect them repeatedly. — Martin Luther

In Connecticut the electoral body consisted, from its origin, of the whole number of citizens; and this is readily to be understood, *a when we recollect that this people enjoyed an almost perfect equality of fortune, and a still greater uniformity of opinions. *b In Connecticut, at this period, all the executive functionaries were elected, including the Governor of the State. *c The citizens above the age of sixteen were obliged to bear arms; they formed a national militia, which appointed its own officers, and was to hold itself at all times in readiness to march for the defence of the country. — Alexis De Tocqueville