From a Speech Delivered at a Farewell Party

"To speak of remembrance as you do is merely a clumsy way of expressing oneself.  Whenever we have experienced something great or beautiful or significant, it need not be recalled as if it were recaptured from without.  On the contrary, it must from the very beginning become interwoven with our inner being, become one with it, make us into a new and better person and thus creatively  live on forever within ourselves.  We must not long for the return of anything that has passed: in a sense there is no past; there is only the ever new that is formed from the elements of what we call the past; longing must always be creative..."

--Johann Wolfgang von Goethe