Frank J. Wilstach, comp. A Dictionary of Similes. 1916.
Memory
Like to a coin, passing from hand to hand,
Are common memories, and day by day
The sharpness of their impress wears away.
—Arlo Bates
Then Memory disclosed her face divine, that like the calm nocturnal lights doth shine within the soul.
—George Eliot
Memory is like a purse, if it be overfull that it cannot shut, all will drop out of it.
—Thomas Fuller
His memory was like a miser’s pocket, from which you cannot entice a quarter of a kopek.
—Nikolai V. Gogol
Sweet is the memory of departed friends. Like the mellow rays of the declining sun, it falls tenderly, yet sadly, on the heart.
—Washington Irving
Memory is like moonlight, the reflection of brighter rays from an object no longer seen.
—G. P. R. James
Our memory is like a sieve, the holes of which in time get larger and larger; the older we get, the quicker anything intrusted to it slips from the memory, whereas what was fixed fast in it in early days is there still.
—Arthur Schopenhauer
Memory like books that remain a long time shut up in the dust needs to be opened from time to time; it is necessary, so to speak, to open the leaves, that it may be ready in time of need.
—Seneca