Selected Evidence

(Mnemosyne knows) “all that has been, all that is, all that will be” - Hesiod, Theogony

“The perfect have no need to remember” - Plato, Phaedrus

“Next, let us consider the goods of the soul: they are temperance, justice, courage, quickness of apprehension, memory, magnanimity, and the like?” - Plato, Meno

“For just as in a person with a trained memory, a memory of things themselves is immediately caused by the mere mention of their places so these habits too will make a man readier in reasoning, because he has his premisses classified before his mind’s eye, each under its number” - Aristotle, Topica

“It is neither more nor less true in this instance than in the other arts that science strives by the aid of innate ability, and nature by the aid of the rules of art” - Cicero, Rhetorica ad Herennium 

“Ordinary things easily slip from the memory while the striking and novel stay longer in mind. A sunrise, the sun's course, a sunset, are marvellous to no one because they occur daily. But solar eclipses are a source of wonder because they occur seldom, and indeed are more marvellous than lunar eclipses, because these are more frequent” - Ibid

“Indeed there is never a moment when we do not wish to commit something to memory, and we wish it most of all when our attention is held by business of special importance. So, since a ready memory is a useful thing, you see clearly with what great pains we must strive to acquire so useful a faculty” - Ibid

“Memory is for those who have forgotten” - Plotinus, Enneades

To be continued…