50 Forgetfulness Quotes That Will Make You Laugh

By Stephanie Kirby | Published July 28, 2023

While forgetfulness can be a sign of bigger issues, these forgetfulness quotes focus on the humorous times when we just absentmindedly forget.

Forgetfulness is the act of knowing something or planning to do something and then just absentmindedly forgetting to do it.

Here are some reasons you may forget something:

The natural tendency when aging – as you age, some forgetfulness is normal.
Busy – if you are over-busy and have too much going on at the same time, then you are likely to start forgetting things.
Not paying attention – you may have agreed to do something when you were not really paying attention and forget as a result.
Stress – stress is a strain on our minds and can cause us to forget things.

We have all had days where we forgot something that either embarrassed us or cost us some friction, such as forgetting what your spouse told you.

Take a look at these forgetfulness quotes to enjoy a few laughs.

The Best Forgetfulness Quotes

Enjoy some of the best forgetfulness quotes.

1. “Time makes us forget.” — Khaled Hosseini

2. “Forgetfulness is a form of freedom.” — Kahlil Gibran

3. “People are machines of forgetfulness.” — Henri Barbusse

4. “It is sure the hardest science to forget!” — Alexander Pope

5. “So much is buried in our lives that we forget what we have learned.” — Harley King

6. “Forgetting happens. If you stress about it, it’ll happen even more.” — Lisa Genova

7. “Few have wished for memory so much as they have longed for forgetfulness.” — Arthur Helps

8. “I take my forgetfulness in a positive stride because I also forget the problems.” — Hina Khan

9. “The only thing faster than the speed of thought is the speed of forgetfulness.” — Vera Nazarian

10. “Let the past be content with itself, for man needs forgetfulness as well as memory.” — James Stephens

Relatable Forgetfulness Quotes

Check out these relatable forgetfulness quotes.

11. “Forgetfulness is a mask of the masses.” — Mantaranjot Mangat

12. “Do I forget, or do I refuse to remember?” — Craig D. Lounsbrough

13. “We do not always remember the things that do no credit to us.” — Neil Gaiman

14. “Until it is taken out of your mind, it is never lost, and it is never gone” — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

15. “And yet even when the meaningful is forgotten, memory doesn’t define what it means to be human.” — Lisa Genova

16. “Sometimes it only takes a simple thought to help us remember what it took us years to forget.” — Craig D. Lounsbrough

17. “As you get older, three things happen. The first is your memory goes, and I can’t remember the other two.” — Norman Wisdom

18. “The ability to memorize a very large number of things is not nearly as valuable as the ability to tell what is worth remembering.” — Mokokoma Mokhonoana

19. “While walking down the memory lane, we may discover in the remains of our early days, surprising little details that have been eclipsed under the mantle of forgetfulness or inattention.” — Erik Pevernagie

20. “The reason I might forget something is because my mind is like a computer. I have so much useless stuff stored up in there that when I forget to clean out my Mind’s Cache, it has no room for new information.” — James Hauenstein

Reflective Forgetfulness Quotes

Here are some reflective forgetfulness quotes.

21. “Nobody is forgotten when it is convenient to remember him.” — Benjamin Disraeli

22. “Forgetfulness leads to exile while remembrance is the secret of redemption.” — Baal Shem Tov

23. “Forgiveness is a clean lotion that heals the wounds of misunderstandings!” — Israelmore Ayivor

24. “If we remembered everything, we should on most occasions be as ill off as if we remembered nothing.” — William James

25. “Not the power to remember, but it’s very opposite, the power to forget, is a necessary condition of our existence.” — Sholem Asch

26. “But now I have the feeling everything is gliding away from me, and I don’t remember, and I don’t care, and yet now is right when I need it.” — Tove Jansson

27. “I see that it is impossible to remember a long poem without practice and repetition; so is forgetfulness of the words of instruction engendered in the heart that has ceased to value them.” — Xenophon

28. “To forget is to blithely toss aside the hard lessons that were hard won by others before us, thereby needlessly dooming us to endure the hard lessons that are likely to be forgotten by those who will follow us.” — Craig D. Lounsbrough

29. “Real humility lies in self-forgetfulness. Few want to hear this, but it’s true, and it can be enormously helpful in life: if you are constantly being hurt, offended, or angered, you should honestly evaluate your inflamed ego.” — Brant Hansen

30. “If we experience any failures or setbacks, we do not forget them because they offend our self-esteem. Instead, we reflect on them deeply, trying to figure out what went wrong and discern whether there are any patterns to our mistakes.” — Robert Greene

Interesting Forgetfulness Quotes

Take a look at these interesting forgetfulness quotes.

31. “I am blessed that I quickly forget things.” — Hina Khan

32. “Forgetfulness is like a song That, freed from beat and measure, wanders.” — Hart Crane

33. “Our brains don’t remember everything, but maybe what they remember is enough.” — Lisa Genova

34. “I can be like that: forgetting how hard it was to do something after I’m past it.” — Andrea Seigel

35. “By forgetting the past and by throwing myself into other interests, I forget to worry.” — Jack Dempsey

36. “We forget exponentially. A graph of our likelihood of getting the correct answer on a quiz sweeps quickly downward over time and then levels off.” — Gary Wolf

37. “I have been forgetting things for years – at least since I was in my 30s. I know this because I wrote something about it at the time; I have proof.” — Nora Ephron

38. “The next time you struggle with the name of that famous surfer or forget to buy milk at the store, you can remember that these are examples of normal forgetting and, hopefully, you can relax.” — Lisa Genova

39. “The problem of forgetting might not torment us so much if we could only convince ourselves that remembering isn’t important. Perhaps the things we learn – words, dates, formulas, historical and biographical details – don’t really matter.” — Gary Wolf

40. “When I went to the medical profession complaining of fatigue and forgetfulness, they diagnosed me with Mental Illness, Sleep Apnea, and Small Airways Disease. What I actually had was far larger and included Altitude Hypersensitivity, Circadian Rhythm Disorder, and Urea Cycle Disorder, and all of them cause fatigue and forgetfulness!” — Steven Magee

More Forgetfulness Quotes

Enjoy some more forgetfulness quotes!

41. “We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget.” — Joan Didion

42. “I like people who have the capacity to forget. I think that to forget is a good thing.” — Rithy Panh

43. “I would wonder if forgetfulness is more a product of convenience than cognitive function.” — Craig D. Lounsbrough

44. “I’m just one of those people who can always tell the same story twice, forgetting that I’ve told it already.” — Randall Munroe

45. “One of the strangest aspects of living with certain kinds of memory loss is knowing that the forgetting is happening.” — Floyd Skloot

46. “How quickly we forget God’s great deliverances in our lives. How easily we take for granted the miracles he performed in our past.” — David Wilkerson

47. “I am one of the most organized people I have ever met, and even with all my planning, I still feel like I’m constantly forgetting things.” — Rachel Hollis

48. “Most of what we forget is not a failure of character, a symptom of disease, or even a reasonable cause for fear – places most of us tend to go when memory fails us.” — Lisa Genova

49. “Quite naturally, leaves wither and flowers fade. Only if we clear the decay of the past then and there can we really enjoy the beauty of the new leaves and flowers.” — Mata Amritanandamayi

50. “If we are not given the chance to forget, we are also not given the chance to recover our memories, to alter them with time, perspective, and wisdom. Forgetting, we can be ourselves beyond what the past has told us we are; we can evolve.” — Caterina Fake