“Anything but history, for history must be false.”

As quoted in Totalitarian Temptation http://www.friesian.com/gonzalz2.htm#note-9 (1976).
1970s

Dissertation for doctor of philosophy in christian education (May 25, 1991)

Turning the Wheel (1981), section 2

Introduction, as translated by H. B. Nisbet (1975)
Variant translation: What experience and history teach is this — that people and governments never have learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it.
Pragmatical (didactic) reflections, though in their nature decidedly abstract, are truly and indefeasibly of the Present, and quicken the annals of the dead Past with the life of to-day. Whether, indeed, such reflections are truly interesting and enlivening, depends on the writer's own spirit. Moral reflections must here be specially noticed, the moral teaching expected from history; which latter has not unfrequently been treated with a direct view to the former. It may be allowed that examples of virtue elevate the soul, and are applicable in the moral instruction of children for impressing excellence upon their minds. But the destinies of peoples and states, their interests, relations, and the complicated tissue of their affairs, present quite another field. Rulers, Statesmen, Nations, are wont to be emphatically commended to the teaching which experience offers in history. But what experience and history teach is this, that peoples and governments never have learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it. Each period is involved in such peculiar circumstances, exhibits a condition of things so strictly idiosyncratic, that its conduct must be regulated by considerations connected with itself, and itself alone. Amid the pressure of great events, a general principle gives no help. It is useless to revert to similar circumstances in the Past. The pallid shades of memory struggle in vain with the life and freedom of the Present.
Lectures on the History of History Vol 1 p. 6 John Sibree translation (1857), 1914
Lectures on the Philosophy of History (1832), Volume 1

Speech to the House of Commons (8 June 1982) http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/speeches/1982/60882a.htm
1980s, First term of office (1981–1985)
Context: From Stettin on the Baltic to Varna on the Black Sea, the regimes planted by totalitarianism have had more than thirty years to establish their legitimacy. But none — not one regime — has yet been able to risk free elections. Regimes planted by bayonets do not take root.... If history teaches anything, it teaches self-delusion in the face of unpleasant facts is folly.... Our military strength is a prerequisite to peace, but let it be clear we maintain this strength in the hope it will never be used, for the ultimate determinant in the struggle that's now going on in the world will not be bombs and rockets but a test of wills and ideas, a trial of spiritual resolve, the values we hold, the beliefs we cherish, the ideals to which we are dedicated.

Source: Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge (1998), p. 262.