History Repeats/Quotes

"Hegel remarks somewhere that all great, world-historical facts and personages occur, as it were, twice. He has forgotten to add: the first time as tragedy, the second as farce."

—Karl Marx

They say the next big thing is here,
That the revolution's near;
But to me it seems quite clear

That it's all just a little bit of history repeating.

—"History Repeating", by the Propellerheads and Shirley Bassey.

Don't put your trust in revolutions. They always come around again. That's why they're called revolutions. People die, and nothing changes.

—Vimes in Night Watch, by Terry Pratchett.

History repeats itself. That's one of the things wrong with history.

—Clarence Darrow

All this has happened before and will happen again.

—Numerous folks in Battlestar Galactica (originally a quote from Peter Pan)

History comes full circle. Sometimes humanity survives, other times.... it's obliterated. We tell stories to help us remember history. To keep us from reigniting a war that could no doubt destroy another planet and perhaps another race. I wish the best of those who find a fallen meteor, who uncover a little secret, who follow the trail, or reconstruct my nightmare.

—Grizzly one in Battlezone 1998 by Activision

History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme.

—Mark Twain, giving us the No Except Yes version.

Those who fail to remember History are doomed to repeat it.

—George Santayana

You know, Ms. Wister, there is a mistaken proverb which tells us that those who are ignorant of the past are condemned to repeat it. In fact, they're lucky if they're allowed to repeat it. More probably, they're condemned to something even worse than the past. This is doubly true of those who believe that their ignorance somehow makes them morally superior to those who don't share it.

—Admiral Antonov, In Death Ground

"The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be, and that which is done is that which shall be done. There is no remembrance of former things, neither shall there be any remembrance of things that are to come with those that shall come after...."

—Sam, quoting Ecclesiastes 1:9 and 1:11 to a dying man in Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny

Those who cannot remember history are doomed to repost it every month, with diffs marked with change bars.

—Ed Vielmetti <emv@msen.com>

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