Nothing fixes a thing so intensely in the memory as the wish to forget it.

The remark captures a psychological paradox: deliberate efforts to suppress a thought can keep attention trained on it, making it more vivid and persistent. Montaigne’s broader habit in the Essays is to observe the mind’s self-defeating maneuvers—how willpower, anxiety, or shame can intensify the very impressions they aim to erase. The line anticipates what modern psychology calls “ironic process” or rebound effects in thought suppression: monitoring oneself to ensure forgetting becomes a form of continual rehearsal. It also implies a practical counsel consistent with Montaigne’s skepticism about self-mastery: acceptance and diversion may loosen a memory’s grip more effectively than forceful denial.