How History Repeats Itself Quotes & Sayings

I put the truth out there, I put the historical facts into Hip Hop to show us how much history repeats itself and that if we truly want to evolve as a human race, we need to stop sticking each other in ridiculous categories. — Immortal Technique

History repeats the old conceits, the glib replies, the same defeats. — Elvis Costello

The reason that history so often repeats is not only human nature, but also human ignorance. — Glenn Beck

While history never repeats itself, political patterns do. — Eric Alterman

History repeats itself is another way of saying the past harmonizes. — Stephen King

Time does stop sometimes, you see everyone passing by, following their destiny and the destination it is leading, and you conclude its better where you are then moving again ... often history repeats itself before it changes ... — Prashant

History repeats itself because nobody listens the first time. — Erik Qualman

History repeats itself, in part because the genome repeats itself. And the genome repeats itself, in part because history does. The impulses, ambitions, fantasies, and desires that drive human history are, at least in part, encoded in the human genome. And human history has, in turn, selected genomes that carry these impulses, ambitions, fantasies, and desires. This self-fulfilling circle of logic is responsible for some of the most magnificent and evocative qualities in our species, but also some of the most reprehensible. It is far too much to ask ourselves to escape the orbit of this logic, but recognizing its inherent circularity, and being skeptical of its overreach, might protect the week from the will of the strong, and the 'mutant' from being annihilated by the 'normal'. — Siddhartha Mukherjee

I've been completely fascinated with history because it tells everything about what's going to happen next because it's cyclical, everything repeats in general. — Emilie Autumn

History repeats itself, you sang. I wonder if that's true. If there's a hurt
that's buried in us, maybe it keeps fi nding its way through. — Ava Dellaira

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

I can dig out the old chestnut from George Santayana, that "those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it," but it serves no purpose. It's a hopelessly optimistic quote. We are condemned to repeat the past whether we remember it or not. It is inevitable; just ask Nietzsche (eternal return) or Hegel (history repeats itself) or James McCourt (history repeats itself like hiccups). — Rabih Alameddine

Silence ensures that history repeats itself. — Erin Gruwell

History may not repeat, but it often rhymes. — Mark Twain

The saying goes that history repeats itself; personal histories do the same. We can gather the lessons of others' lives through observation, conversation, and by seeking advice. We can use the automatic system to find out who the happy people are, and the reflective system to evaluate how they got to be that way. Pursuing happiness need not be a lonely endeavor. In fact, throwing in our lot with others may be a very good way of coping with the disappointments of choice. — Sheena Iyengar

History repeats itself when it does not feel heard. — Christine Edwards

That history almost always repeats itself. And it is almost always written by men. — Ally Carter

History repeats itself and that's just how it goes, — J. Cole

All of us know history repeats itself, but mighty few of us recognize the repetition until too late. — Kenneth Roberts

History repeats itself in the large because human nature changes with geological leisureliness. — Will Durant

The history of the genesis or the old mythology repeats itself in the experience of every child. He too is a demon or god thrown into a particular chaos, where he strives ever to lead things from disorder into order. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

If history repeats itself, and the unexpected always happens, how incapable must Man be of learning from experience. — George Bernard Shaw

You see how strangely history repeats itself.Here and now in Bosnia we are seeing images like those of the second world war. I remember that war very well.I was 16 when it began ,and 20 when it ended . Then,too, there were Chentniks and Ustasha,and they are again.the difference is that these Chetniks are worse than the Chetniks of that time,these Ustasha worse than those Ustasha.I can say this with complete confidence ,because Ustasha of that time didn't destroy the Old Bridge ,nor the mosques of Mostar ,and these have done so. — Alija Izetbegovic

For every written history, there is a silenced part of it, that is left to remain untold and undiscovered until history repeats itself. — Joon Mier Da Mienta

"The Universe repeats itself, with the possible exception of history." Of all earthly studies history is the only one that does not repeat itself ... Astronomy repeats itself; botany repeats itself; trigonometry repeats itself; mechanics repeats itself; compound long division repeats itself. Every sum if worked out in the same way at any time will bring out the same answer ... A great many moderns say that history is a science; if so it occupies a solitary and splendid elevation among the sciences; it is the only science the conclusions of which are always wrong. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

Some say, 'Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it.' I say, 'Those who ignore history are in for a big surprise.' — Stephen Colbert

History repeats itself but without a parity bit — Nauman Khan

History repeats, but science reverberates. — Siddhartha Mukherjee

We could start, perhaps, with the seemingly simple question, What is History? Any thoughts, Webster?' 'History is the lies of the victors,' I replied, a little too quickly. 'Yes, I was rather afraid you'd say that. Well, as long as you remember that it is also the self-delusions of the defeated. Simpson?' Colin was more prepared than me. 'History is a raw onion sandwich, sir.' 'For what reason?' 'It just repeats, sir. It burps. We've seen it again and again this year. Same old story, same old oscillation between tyranny and rebellion, war and peace, prosperity and impoverishment.' 'Rather a lot for a sandwich to contain, wouldn't you say?' We laughed far more than was required, with an end-of-term hysteria. 'Finn?' '"History is that certainty produced at the point where the imperfections of memory meet the inadequacies of documentation." ' 'Is it, indeed? Where did you find that?' 'Lagrange, sir. Patrick Lagrange. He's French. — Julian Barnes

Marx wrote that 'History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.' This was witty but far from true. History is never repeated, but it borrows, steals, echoes and commandeers the past to create a hybrid, something unique out of the ingredients of past and present. — Simon Sebag Montefiore

History repeats. — Pippa DaCosta

Was it really worth it? I wondered again.

I wanted to believe it had been but could not help feeling cynical about how history repeats itself. There still were the same political intrigues, the hate groups that thrive on terror and human misery and I knew that there were enough egos and self-indulging crusaders to fuel another war, and another... — Helene Deschamps-Adams

The only lesson you can learn from history is that it repeats itself — Bangambiki Habyarimana

History repeats itself only in that, from afar, we all seem to lead exactly the same life. We are all born; we all spend time here on earth; we all die. But up close, we have each walked down our own separate paths. We have stood at our own lonely crossroads. We have touched the lives of others at crucial points, for better or for worse. In the end, each of us has lived a unique life story, astounding and complicated, a story that could never be repeated. — Edward Bloor

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

Man is a parrot in the House of History; he listens and then he repeats the same crap over and over! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

I think [James] Joyce sometimes enjoyed misleading his readers. He said to me that history was like that parlor game where someone whispers something to the person next to him, who repeats it not very distinctly to the next person, and so on until, by the time the last person hears it, it comes out completely transformed. Of course, as he explained to me, the meaning in Finnegans Wake is obscure because it is a 'nightpiece.' I think, too, that, like the author's sight, the work is often blurred. — Sylvia Beach

History never repeats itself," said Voltaire; "man always does." Thucydides, — Barbara W. Tuchman

The early and relatively sophisticated Egyptians understood that their civilization would be threatened if they bred with the Negroes to their south, so pharaohs went so far as "to prevent the mongrelization of the Egyptian race" by making it a death penalty-eligible offense to bring blacks into Egypt. The ancient Egyptians even constructed a fort on the Nile in central Egypt to prevent blacks from immigrating to their lands. In spite of the efforts by the Egyptian government to defend their civilization, blacks still came to Egypt as soldiers, slaves, and captives from other nations. By 1,500 B.C., half of the population of southern Egypt was of mixed blood, and by 688 B.C., societal progress had ended in Egypt when Taharka became the first mulatto pharaoh. By 332 B.C., Egypt had fallen when Alexander the Great conquered the region. — Kyle Bristow

History never repeats itself; at best it sometimes rhymes. — Mark Twain

Remember that history always repeats itself. Every great bubble in history has broken. There are no exceptions. — Jeremy Grantham

History repeats itself, but in such cunning disguise that we never detect the resemblance until the damage is done. — Sydney J. Harris