Quotes: Memory
5 quotes on this theme, each with its source and insight
The quotes
“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.”
Source: Journal entry JJ:167 (1843) · Check the source
Verified attributionWhat we know
- What is documented
- The idea is attested in Kierkegaard’s journal entry JJ:167 (1843); the canonical English sentence is a later shortened rendering of that passage.
- What remains uncertain
- The familiar English wording compresses and slightly alters the original journal sentence, and the citation often misdates the entry to 1844.
Kierkegaard highlights a structural conflict: meaning is something you assemble in hindsight, while living requires forward movement amid uncertainty. The thought appears in his private journal (JJ:167, 1843) and stresses that understanding and action occupy different temporal roles.
“The place we run toward runs toward us!”
Source: Birds of Caution, 1996 (later editions noted, e.g. 2012) · Check the source
Disputed attributionWhat we know
- What is documented
- The wording is attributed online to Ibrahim Nasrallah and associated with Birds of Caution, but the evidence comes from reader-submitted quotation pages rather than a verified printed passage.
- What remains uncertain
- No page number, edition or primary-text citation has been located; the quotation is plausibly Nasrallah’s but not independently verified.
The line makes place active: the homeland seems to move toward the person who seeks it. Read against Nasrallah’s Birds of Caution, it reads less like a self-help axiom and more like a poetic claim about memory, exile and the pull of belonging. The syntax turns longing into a lived paradox.
“In life, only death is certain. Everything else sways between the two shores of doubt.”
Source: A Varanda do Frangipani, 1996 · Check the source
Verified attributionWhat we know
- What is documented
- The wording is verified as by Mia Couto and is cited as coming from the novel A Varanda do Frangipani (1996).
- What remains uncertain
- Attribution is supported by secondary online catalogs but no edition page or chapter was located in the sources found.
The line pins one absolute — death — to show that everything living is shaped by shifting accounts and memories. In Couto's novel this idea underlies a polyphonic plot where truth emerges from clashing versions rather than from a single fixed fact.
“If we want to strangle an old love, we must constantly mock it”
Source: القندس (The Beaver), Dar al‑Saqi, 2011 · Check the source
Verified attributionWhat we know
- What is documented
- The sentence is attributed to Mohammed Hasan Alwan and appears in citation listings as a passage from the novel القندس.
- What remains uncertain
- Attribution is verified in secondary quotation sources and book extracts, but no page‑numbered primary‑text scan was located to give a precise pagination reference.
Alwan captures a defensive trick: mocking a past love to strip it of its power. In The Beaver the line shows how ridicule is used to build emotional barriers — not to erase longing but to contain and quiet its influence.
“Every new social movement is initially accused of being the work of foreigners and heretics; if it succeeds and seizes power, it becomes part of religion itself and enters the record of inherited sacred things.”
Source: Wʿāẓ al‑Salāṭīn, p. 61 (1954) · Check the source
Verified attributionWhat we know
- What is documented
- The sentence is attributed to Ali al‑Wardi and appears as a passage in Wʿāẓ al‑Salāṭīn, commonly located on page 61.
- What remains uncertain
- Minor textual variants appear across editions and online transcriptions, but there is no serious evidence of another author.
Al‑Wardi warns that political success can rewrite a movement’s past: accusations of foreignness and heresy often become, after victory, framed as sacred, inherited tradition. The line appears in Wʿāẓ al‑Salāṭīn (commonly cited p. 61) and points to how power reshapes collective memory.