what has been seen cannot be unseen

what has been seen cannot be unseen

English

Alternative forms

• that which has been seen cannot be unseen

Proverb

what has been seen cannot be unseen

1. Repulsive, disturbing, or horrific sights can never be erased from memory once they have been seen.
   • 2010, Brad Prager, "Suffering and Sympathy in Volker Schlöndorff's Der neunte Tag and Dennis Gansel's NaPolA", in Screening War: Perspectives on German Suffering (eds. Paul Cooke & Marc Silberman), Camden House (2010), →ISBN, page 196:

     At Dachau he was witness to real rather than abstract suffering; what has been seen cannot be unseen, nor can it be rationalized.

   • 2011, Jay Wallace, "Akira", BandWagon Magazine, December 2011:

     I went into Akira knowing it's considered amongst critics a landmark film for anime and the success of the genre in America, but I was also expecting the type of weirdness that has given anime an infamous reputation in pop culture. Don't know what I'm talking about? Google "hentai." …Actually, no, don't do that. Seriously. Don't fucking do that. What has been seen cannot be unseen.

   • For more examples of usage of this term, see Citations:what has been seen cannot be unseen.