“Those who understand history are condemned to watch other idiots repeat it.”
Hakim Bey (1945) American political writer, poet and essayist
“Scientists ignorant of history are not so much condemned to repeat it, as to be confused and unenterprising.”
"Exultation and Explanation", p. 187
An Urchin in the Storm (1987)
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Do you have more details about the quote "Scientists ignorant of history are not so much condemned to repeat it, as to be confused and unenterprising." by Stephen Jay Gould?
Stephen Jay Gould274
American evolutionary biologist 1941–2002Related quotes
“History does not so much repeat as echo, I suppose.”
Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga
Source: Vorkosigan Saga, Cryoburn (2010), Chapter 13 (p. 257)
“Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
Benjamin Graham book The Intelligent Investor
Source: The Intelligent Investor
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
George Santayana (1863–1952) 20th-century Spanish-American philosopher associated with Pragmatism
This famous statement has produced many paraphrases and variants:
Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
Those who do not remember their past are condemned to repeat their mistakes.
Those who do not read history are doomed to repeat it.
Those who fail to learn from the mistakes of their predecessors are destined to repeat them.
Those who do not know history's mistakes are doomed to repeat them.
There is a similar quote by Edmund Burke (in Revolution in France) that often leads to misattribution: "People will not look forward to posterity, who never look backward to their ancestors."
The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress (1905-1906), Vol. I, Reason in Common Sense
Source: The Life of Reason: Five Volumes in One
Context: Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
John Adams (1735–1826) 2nd President of the United States
Letter to Thomas Jefferson (23 August 1787), The Works of John Adams.
1780s
“Those who don't remember the past are condemned to repeat the eleventh grade.”
James W. Loewen (1942) American historian
Source: 1990s Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong (1995), p. 1
Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, known for his works of science fiction …
Quasar, Quasar, Burning Bright (1978), p. 235
General sources
James Bryce, 1st Viscount Bryce (1838–1922) British academic, jurist, historian and Liberal politician
Letter to C. P. Scott (20 January 1920), in Trevor Wilson (ed.), The Political Diaries of C. P. Scott, 1911-1928 (London: Collins, 1970), p. 380
1920s
“History repeats itself: historians repeat each other.”
Philip Guedalla (1889–1944) British historical writer
" Some Historians http://books.google.com/books?id=E0luAAAAMAAJ&q=%22History+repeats+itself+historians+repeat+each+other%22&pg=PA20#v=onepage," Supers & Supermen: Studies in Politics, History and Letters (1920)
“History repeats itself. That's one of the things wrong with history.”
Clarence Darrow (1857–1938) American lawyer and leading member of the American Civil Liberties Union
As quoted in Peter's Quotations: Ideas For Our Time (1977) edited by Laurence J. Peter, p. 248