The Seven Sins of Memory The Seven Sins of Memory The Seven Sins of Memory: How the Mind Forgets and Remembers is a book () by Daniel Schacter, former chair of Harvard University's Psychology Department and a leading memory researcher. The book revolves around the theory that "the seven sins of memory" are similar to the Seven deadly sins, and that if one tries to avoid committing these sins, it will help to improve one's ability to remember. Schacter argues that these features of human memory are not necessarily bad, and that they serve a useful purpose in memory. For instance, persistence is one of
Seven deadly sins person . . . who, for a morsel of meat sold his birthright." We learn that "he found no place for repentance, though he sought it carefully, with tears." Greed (Latin, ), also known as avarice, cupidity, or covetousness, is, like lust and gluttony, a sin of desire. However, greed (as seen by the Church) is applied to an artificial, rapacious desire and pursuit of material possessions. Thomas Aquinas wrote, "Greed is a sin against God, just as all mortal sins, in as much as man condemns things eternal for the sake of temporal things." In Dante's Purgatory, the penitents