87 Quotes About History-repeating-itself

Is it only in the army in the Philippines that Americans sometimes commit deeds that cause all other Americans to regret? [Theodore Roosevelt 1901 relating reports of water torture in the Philippines to lynching in the south]

Someone tweeted a quote of mine yesterday, and got abused so much for posting it they deleted it. Any doubts free speech is under attack everywhere now vanished for me right there. The crushing of my words in another's mouth left me speechless. Words, and the freedom to express them, are getting torched on a bonfire of inanities. Then the chilling hand of déjà vu claps us on the back and tells us not to concern ourselves with independent thought.

We build museums to house history, but it slips out through the cracks of sash and jamb

The problem with the idea that history repeats itself is that when it isn't making us wiser it's making us complacent.

They say pale gilded flowers once blossomed here. They twinkled with excitement beneath the bright ardor of this sun. Each bearing a glint of hope that could heal the most broken of hearts. Yet, in disappointment . . . and regret—I found it to be a lie.

Virgil stepped back from the front door and drew a non-standard-issued sidearm—a large-mouthed weapon of history. A hand-me-down from an officer in one of those wars that were supposed to end all those other wars.

I suddenly realized that it is important to never lose sight—and insight—of the fact that what is happening today has happened yesterday and will probably happen tomorrow as well, if we don’t truly understand, learn from, and interrogate history.

What is happening today has happened yesterday and will happen tomorrow also, unless we take serious steps to stop it.

We keep thinking history happened to someone else, but history is where we came from; what happened before us is how we got to where we are.