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.
Quotes about repeat
page 10
The Philosophy of Physical Science (1938)
Context: Let us suppose that an ichthyologist is exploring the life of the ocean. He casts a net into the water and brings up a fishy assortment. Surveying his catch, he proceeds in the usual manner of a scientist to systematise what it reveals. He arrives at two generalisations: No sea-creature is less than two inches long. (2) All sea-creatures have gills. These are both true of his catch, and he assumes tentatively that they will remain true however often he repeats it.
In applying this analogy, the catch stands for the body of knowledge which constitutes physical science, and the net for the sensory and intellectual equipment which we use in obtaining it. The casting of the net corresponds to observation; for knowledge which has not been or could not be obtained by observation is not admitted into physical science.
An onlooker may object that the first generalisation is wrong. "There are plenty of sea-creatures under two inches long, only your net is not adapted to catch them." The icthyologist dismisses this objection contemptuously. "Anything uncatchable by my net is ipso facto outside the scope of icthyological knowledge. In short, what my net can't catch isn't fish." Or — to translate the analogy — "If you are not simply guessing, you are claiming a knowledge of the physical universe discovered in some other way than by the methods of physical science, and admittedly unverifiable by such methods. You are a metaphysician. Bah!"
As We May Think (1945)
Context: Professionally our methods of transmitting and reviewing the results of research are generations old and by now are totally inadequate for their purpose. If the aggregate time spent in writing scholarly works and in reading them could be evaluated, the ratio between these amounts of time might well be startling. Those who conscientiously attempt to keep abreast of current thought, even in restricted fields, by close and continuous reading might well shy away from an examination calculated to show how much of the previous month's efforts could be produced on call. Mendel's concept of the laws of genetics was lost to the world for a generation because his publication did not reach the few who were capable of grasping and extending it; and this sort of catastrophe is undoubtedly being repeated all about us, as truly significant attainments become lost in the mass of the inconsequential.
Source: The Book on the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are (1966), p. 60
“He must be a poor creature that does not often repeat himself.”
The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table (1858)
Context: He must be a poor creature that does not often repeat himself. Imagine the author of the excellent piece of advice, "Know thyself," never alluding to that sentiment again during the course of a protracted existence! Why, the truths a man carries about with him are his tools; and do you think a carpenter is bound to use the same plane but once to smooth a knotty board with, or to hang up his hammer after it has driven its first nail? I shall never repeat a conversation, but an idea often. I shall use the same types when I like, but not commonly the same stereotypes. A thought is often original, though you have uttered it a hundred times. It has come to you over a new route, by a new and express train of associations.
“Custom renders love attractive; for that which is struck by oft-repeated blows however lightly, yet after long course of time is overpowered and gives way. See you not too that drops of water falling on rocks after long course of time scoop a hole through these rocks?”
Consuetudo concinnat amorem;
nam leviter quamvis quod crebro tunditur ictu,
vincitur in longo spatio tamen atque labascit.
Nonne vides etiam guttas in saxa cadentis
umoris longo in spatio pertundere saxa?
Book IV, lines 1283–1287 (tr. Munro)
De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of Things)
Teaching as a Subversive Activity (1969)
Context: In order to understand what kind of behaviors classrooms promote, one must become accustomed to observing what, in fact, students actually do in them. What students do in a classroom is what they learn (as Dewey would say), and what they learn to do is the classroom's message (as McLuhan would say). Now, what is it that students do in the classroom? Well, mostly they sit and listen to the teacher. Mostly, they are required to believe in authorities, or at least pretend to such belief when they take tests. Mostly they are required to remember. They are almost never required to make observations, formulate definitions, or perform any intellectual operations that go beyond repeating what someone else says is true. They are rarely encouraged to ask substantive questions, although they are permitted to ask about administrative and technical details. (How long should the paper be? Does spelling count? When is the assignment due?) It is practically unheard of for students to play any role in determining what problems are worth studying or what procedures of inquiry ought to be used. Examine the types of questions teachers ask in classrooms, and you will find that most of them are what might technically be called "convergent questions," but what might more simply be called "Guess what I am thinking " questions.
Kibbeh Palace, Cairo, Oct. 31, 1980, as quoted in Farah Pahlavi (2004) An Enduring Love: My Life with the Shah, p. 434.
Speeches, 1980
Speech to a lunch of the English-Speaking Union in the Criterion Restaurant (11 October 1918) after the sinking of the RMS Leinster, quoted in The Times (12 October 1918), p. 2
Foreign Secretary
"The Scientific Aspect of Monte Carlo Roulette" (1894)
Source: Meditations. Yogas, Gods, Religions (2000), p. 31
Selected works, The Savage Anomaly: The Power of Spinoza's Metaphysics and Politics (1991)
292
Leaves of Morya’s Garden: Book One (The Call) (1924)
“Reality, it cannot be repeated too often, varies with every one of us.”
Source: Pène du Bois, Henri (1897). Witty, Wise and Wicked Maxims https://archive.org/stream/wittywisewickedm00peneiala#page/n3/mode/2up, New York: Brentano's, p. 88.
"On the Condition of Free Men of Colour" (31 May 1791)
Disputed, Give me liberty, or give me death! (1775)
Disputed, Give me liberty, or give me death! (1775)
Account of his famous dream of the benzene structure, as quoted in A Life of Magic Chemistry : Autobiographical Reflections of a Nobel Prize Winner (2001) by George A. Olah, p. 54
The Conspiracy Against the Human Race: A Contrivance of Horror (2010)
quoted in Arun Shourie - The World of Fatwas Or The Sharia in Action (2012, Harper Collins)
“We want to be a peace-loving element among the nations. We cannot repeat that often enough.”
Speech in Berlin (30 January 1936), quoted in The Times (26 September 1939), p. 9
1930s
Kepler... in the third book of Harmonice mundi... attempted to make other... related, connections between musical harmony and mathematical proportion.
Longing for the Harmonies: Themes and Variations from Modern Physics (1987)
The Dark Ages (1968), p. 188
General sources
Heinz Guderian, Panzer Leader (1990), p. 449
L. Bender, L. Cobrinik, G. Faretra, D.V. Siva Sankar, "The Treatment of Childhood Schizophrenia with LSD and UML" http://www.neurodiversity.com/library_bender_1966a.html, Biological Treatment of Mental Illness, Proceedings II of the International Conference of the Manfred Sakel Foundation 10/31-11/3/1962, 1966; 2(4):463-91.
On the Brexit Party's performance in the https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/26/world/europe/farage-brexit-party-uk-elections.html 2019 elections for European Parliament, 26 May 2019
2019
SELECTED WRITINGS OF MAHATMA GANDHI https://web.archive.org/web/20180216130212/https://www.mkgandhi.org/swmgandhi/chap07.htm, Extracts from the Delhi Diary, 23 September 1947.
1940s
Message on Pakistan Day, issued from Delhi (23 March 1943)
The Furious Longing of God https://books.google.com/books?id=n17xNZ-aCj0C&pg=PA82&dq=%22To+affirm+a+person+is+to+see+the+good%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi6n8OW-JTkAhVJ2FkKHQN4AEIQ6AEwAnoECAEQAg#v=onepage&q=%22To%20affirm%20a%20person%20is%20to%20see%20the%20good%22&f=false (2009), pp. 82–83
2000s
Slavoj Žižek, Iraq: The Borrowed Kettle, p. 2. ISBN 1844675408.
April, 2017 in season 2 episode 2 of the NRATV series Freedom's Safest Place and June, 2017 excerpted as a video advertisement for the NRA ([Dana, Loesch, The Violence of Lies, NRATV, Freedom's Safest Place, April 2017, May 20, 2019, https://www.nratv.com/episodes/freedoms-safest-place-season-2-episode-2-the-violence-of-lies]; [N.R.A. Ad Condemning Protests Against Trump Raises Partisan Anger, Jonah, Engel Bromwich, June 29, 2017, The New York Times, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/29/us/nra-ad-trump-protests.html]; [Secrecy, Self-Dealing, and Greed at the N.R.A., Mike, Spies, April 17, 2019, The New Yorker, https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/secrecy-self-dealing-and-greed-at-the-nra]; [NRA advert calling on Americans to 'fight lies' called 'an open call to violence', Emily, Shugerman, June 29, 2017, The Independent, https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/nra-advert-video-watch-guns-trump-fight-lies-violence-fist-truth-a7815231.html]; [NRA video declares war on liberals, critics say, William, Cummings, USA Today, June 29, 2017, https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2017/06/30/controversial-nra-video/441506001/]; Live-Streaming the Apocalypse With NRATV, Parker, James, June 2018, The Atlantic https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/06/nratv-live-streaming-the-apocalypse/559139/,; [N.R.A. Ad Condemning Protests Against Trump Raises Partisan Anger, Bromwich, Jonah Engel, June 29, 2017, The New York Times, May 20, 2019, en-US, 0362-4331, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/29/us/nra-ad-trump-protests.html]; [The NRA recruitment video that is even upsetting gun owners, Peter, Holley, June 29, 2017, May 20, 2019, The Washington Post, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2017/06/29/the-nra-recruitment-video-that-is-even-upsetting-gun-owners/]; [A Chilling National Rifle Association Ad Gaining Traction Online Appears to Be 'An Open Call to Violence', Business Insider, May 20, 2019, Natasha, Bertrand, June 29, 2017, http://www.businessinsider.com/national-rifle-association-ad-call-to-violence-2017-6]; [The NRA just released a violent, terrifying ad, Matthew, Rozsa, June 29, 2017, May 24, 2019, Salon, https://www.salon.com/2017/06/29/the-nra-just-released-a-violent-terrifying-ad/]; [How the N.R.A. Manipulates Gun Owners and the Media, Michael, Luo, w:Michael Luo, August 11, 2017, May 23, 2019, The New Yorker, https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/how-the-nra-manipulates-gun-owners-and-the-media]; [The NRA’s New Scare Tactics, Laura, Reston, October 3, 2017, The New Republic, https://newrepublic.com/article/145001/nra-new-scare-tactic-gun-lobby-remaking-itself-arm-alt-right])
“Well, I’ll try to sketch it out for you, but I’ll have to repeat stuff I’ve told you before.”
“That’s all right. I’m a simon-pure layman. My basic thought habits were formed early in the Iron Age. Where it comes to science, I can use plenty of repetition.”
Source: The Boat of a Million Years (1989), Chapter 18 “Judgment Day”, Section 3 (p. 331)
Michael Witzel – An Examination of his Review of my Book (2001)
Michael Witzel – An Examination of his Review of my Book (2001)
Bocchit Edmond (2019) cited in: " 11 of Taiwan's allies speak up at UN debate: MOFA http://focustaiwan.tw/news/aipl/201909290006.aspx" in Focus Taiwan, 29 September 2019.
Statement made during the General Debate of the 74th general assembly of the United Nations, 28 September 2019.
Boris Johnson insists he is 'all behind' May over Brexit https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-41289080 BBC News (16 September 2017)
2017
Source: How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (1972), p. 92.
“Any act often repeated soon forms a habit : and habit allowed, steadily gains in strength.”
At first it may be but as the spider’s web, easily broken through, but if not resisted it soon binds us with chains of steel.
Source: A Dictionary of Thoughts, 1891, p. 212.
Floyd Abrams, Speaking Freely: Trials of the First Amendment, (Viking Press, 2005), p. 71.
Hjalmar Schacht to Leon Goldensohn (10 March 1946)
Peter Gorsen, about the depiction of wounded children in Helnwein's work, Albertina Museum catalogue, Gottfried Helnwein solo-exhibition, 1985, www.gottfried-helnwein-child.com http:////www.gottfried-helnwein-child.com/index.html
" Nobel Prize 2005 Press Release http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economics/laureates/2005/press.html" 10 October 2005
The fact that so many people in the establishment seemed to do so — as they had accepted colonialism, slavery, and other forms of oppression — left a life-long mark. It reinforced a distrust of authority which I had had from childhood
Autobiographical Essay (2001)
Chap. 4 : Determine the Strength of People’s Character
The Laws of Human Nature (2018)
Chap. 4 : Determine the Strength of People’s Character
The Laws of Human Nature (2018)
Think of it, talk like that at such a time!
What had how long it takes a birch to rot
To do with what was in the darkened parlor?
You couldn't care! The nearest friends can go
With anyone to death, comes so far short
They might as well not try to go at all.
Home Burial (1915)
These Arabs believe their religion, and try to live by it! No Christians, since the early ages, or only perhaps the English Puritans in modern times, have ever stood by their Faith as the Moslem do by theirs, — believing it wholly, fronting Time with it, and Eternity with it.
1840s, Heroes and Hero-Worship (1840), The Hero as Prophet
Napoleon the Little (1852), Conclusion, Part Second, II
Napoleon the Little (1852)
EGPaIV" Edward Gibbon, [1788], Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/gibbon/05/daf05010.htm, Vol. 5, Chapter L: Description Of Arabia And Its Inhabitants. Part IV.
The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire: Volume 1 (1776)
‘To the Merchants of England’, Political Register (29 April 1815), pp. 518–19
1810s
“To be mad is to keep repeating something that has already been seen as useless, as worthless.”
Misattributed
“History, it has been said, never repeats itself but historical situations recur.”
Earthlight, p. 347
2000s and posthumous publications, The Collected Stories of Arthur C. Clarke (2001)
VI : Conclusion
Der Judenstaat [The Jewish State] (1896)
“When I was a little boy I used to repeat: "If at first you don't succeed, try, try, try again."”
That is what I am doing. When I come back I hope I may be able to say, as Hotspur said in Henry IV, "Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety."
Speech at Heston Airport before his flight to Munich to meet Hitler (29 September 1938), quoted in The Times (30 September 1938), p. 12
Prime Minister
Raj Kumar: Encyclopaedia of Untouchables Ancient, Medieval and Modern, p. 187 https://books.google.com.pk/books?id=e8o5HyC0-FUC&pg=PA187&lpg=PA187&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false
Kashf ul Asrār, Stanza
Source: Stephen S. Morse (2020) cited in " How some cities ‘flattened the curve’ during the 1918 flu pandemic https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/2020/03/how-cities-flattened-curve-1918-spanish-flu-pandemic-coronavirus/" on National Geographic, 27 March 2020.
Source: 1962, Address and Question and Answer Period at the Economic Club of New York
As quoted in Battles and Leaders of the Civil War (1884 - 1888) edited by Robert Underwood Clarence C. Buel, Vol. II, p. 297
Q him, never let up in the pursuit so long as your men have strength to follow…]]
Journeys Out of the Body (1971), Chapter 9. Angels and Archetypes
2016 - 2020, Valdai Discussion Club: 15th Plenary Session (18 October 2018)
Everything is in a constant state of change and reshaping.
Source: Precepts and Judgments (1919), p. 152
“Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”
“Those who are unwilling to admit error are fated to repeat it?”
Source: World of the Five Gods series, The Hallowed Hunt (2005), Chapter 4 (p. 57)
“History does not so much repeat as echo, I suppose.”
Source: Vorkosigan Saga, Cryoburn (2010), Chapter 13 (p. 257)
“You can't correct a mistake by repeating it over again.”
"Exultation and Explanation", p. 187
An Urchin in the Storm (1987)
Prime Minister
Source: Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1919/jul/03/territorial-adjustments#S5CV0117P0_19190703_HOC_316 in the House of Commons on the Treaty of Versailles (3 July 1919)
[The Puritan Age and Rule in the Colony of the Massachusetts Bay, 1629-1685, https://books.google.com/books?id=toM-AAAAYAAJ&pg=PA31, 31, 1888, Houghton, Mifflin, 978-0-7222-0646-1]
Source: Humanity Comes of Age, A study of Individual and World Fulfillment (1950), Chapter XV The Essential Science of Breathing, p. 104
Source: 1860s, The Massacre Of St. Bartholomew (1869)
18 April 2022
Tom Peters Daily, Weekly Quote
This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color, Fourth Edition (2015)
New cardinal sees clear continuity between Benedict XVI, Francis (9 November 2020) Crux Catholic Media https://cruxnow.com/church-in-europe/2020/11/new-cardinal-sees-clear-continuity-between-benedict-xvi-francis
Original: Bisogna far tesoro dei nostri errori affinché non si ripetano e ci insegnino ad affrontare la vita nel migliore dei modi.
Source: prevale.net
“Mistakes made are opportunities to be seized to prevent them from being repeated.”
Original: Gli errori commessi sono opportunità da cogliere per evitare che si ripetano.
Source: prevale.net