
“It is the soothing thing about history that it does repeat itself.”
Wars I Have Seen (1945)
Origins unclear. Earliest known match in print comes from 1970, in a collection called “Neo Poems” by Canadian artist John Robert Colombo, who recalled reading it sometime in the 1960s. Twain did say "History never repeats itself, but the Kaleidoscopic combinations of the pictured present often seem to be constructed out of the broken fragments of antique legends." in the 1874 edition of “The Gilded Age: A Tale of To-Day”. A thematic precursor, "History May Not Repeat, But It Looks Alike", appears in a 1941 article by Chicago Tribune in Illinois. (Source: Quote Investigator https://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/01/12/history-rhymes/)
Misattributed
“It is the soothing thing about history that it does repeat itself.”
Wars I Have Seen (1945)
“History repeats itself: historians repeat each other.”
" 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.”
As quoted in Peter's Quotations: Ideas For Our Time (1977) edited by Laurence J. Peter, p. 248
and lets fly with a club.
Statement in Analog Science Fiction/Fact magazine (1965)
“History repeats itself all the time on Wall Street.”
Source: Reminiscences of a Stock Operator (1923), Chapter XVIII, p. 217
Augustus (1937)
Context: History does not repeat itself except with variations, and it is idle to look for exact parallels, but we can trace a resemblance between the conditions of his time and those of to-day. Once again the crust of civilization has worn thin, and beneath can be heard the muttering of primeval fires. Once again many accepted principles of government have been overthrown, and the world has become a laboratory where immature and feverish minds experiment with unknown forces. Once again problems cannot be comfortably limited, for science has brought the nations into an uneasy bondage to each other. In the actual business of administration there is no question of today which Augustus had not to face and answer.
“History does not so much repeat as echo, I suppose.”
Source: Vorkosigan Saga, Cryoburn (2010), Chapter 13 (p. 257)