“In the long history of humankind (and animal kind, too) those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed.”

“I have too often contented myself with being a hasty improviser: I have spent too much time exploring fleeting effects of the sky and sea.”

Eugène Boudin (1824–1898) French painter

“Humankind differs from the animals only by a little and most people throw that away.”

Confucius (-551–-479 BC) Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher

“The Happiest peoples, it is said, are those which have no history. Those who have a history, those who have made history seem only to have emphazied through their acomplishments the eternality of struggle. These disappear too eventually, just as those who made no effort, who were content to merely live & enjoy.”

Henry Miller (1891–1980) American novelist

“Like most of those who study history, he learned from the mistakes of the past how to make new ones.”

A.J.P. Taylor (1906–1990) Historian

“Those who love peace must learn to organize as effectively as those who love war.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

“Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”

George Santayana (1863–1952) 20th-century Spanish-American philosopher associated with Pragmatism

“During Humankind’s long centuries societies have risen and fallen, all alike in this one fact which rules all history: the great are protected, the small are crushed.”

Octave Mirbeau (1848–1917) French journalist, art critic, travel writer, pamphleteer, novelist, and playwright

“Children are dying."
Lull nodded. "That's a succinct summary of humankind, I'd say. Who needs tomes and volumes of history? Children are dying. The injustices of the world hide in those three words.”

Steven Erikson book Deadhouse Gates

“Papa Hegel he say that all we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history. I know people who can't even learn from what happened this morning. Hegel must have been taking the long view.”

John Brunner book Stand on Zanzibar