Repeating History Quotes

History repeats itself, but the special call of an art which has passed away is never reproduced. It is as utterly gone out of the world as the song of a destroyed wild bird. ~ Joseph Conrad

All I know is that history repeats itself and people are going to want to experience the world. But I know then they are going to have a better appreciation for what is here in Maine. ~ John Baldacci

Does history repeat itself, the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce? No, that's too grand, too considered a process. History just burps, and we taste again that raw-onion sandwich it swallowed centuries ago. ~ Julian Barnes

History repeats itself and that's just how it goes, ~ J. Cole

Hey," the man said, raising his hands in surrender, "I don't have any issues with you, Farrow. You know that."
"Then we have an understanding, but just in case you're thinking of somehow repeating history and trying to control me through her," he said, arching a brow in warning, "do you remember how fast I am? How deadly?"
Navarra nodded without hesitation.
Reyes leaned toward him and raised his own hand to cover part of his mouth as though telling a secret. "She's faster. ~ Darynda Jones

Mark Twain once said that history doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme. ~ Albert Laszlo Barabasi

Art, when destroyed can never be replaced, yet history repeats itself. ~ Clarence H. Burns

If history repeats itself, and the unexpected always happens, how incapable must Man be of learning from experience. ~ George Bernard Shaw

So when I went to school, I studied a Jordanian curriculum. We never studied anything about Palestine or its history. We never saw a Palestinian map. We studied the history of Jordan, of China, of Germany, of England - I remember learning about all the families who ruled England - but nothing connected to our history, nothing connected to our geography, nothing connected to our culture. ~ Cate Malek

We are very used to imagining that we see a three-dimensional world when we look around ourselves. But is this really true? If we keep in mind that what we see is the result of photons impinging on our eyes, it is possible to imagine our view of the world in quite a different way. Look around and imagine that you see each object as a consequence of photons having just travelled from it to you. Each object you see is the result of a process by which information travelled to you in the shape of a collection of photons. The farther away the object is, the longer it took the photons to travel to you. So when you look around you do not see space-instead, you are looking back through the history of the universe. What you are seeing is a slice through the history of the world. Everything you see is a bit of information brought to you by a process which is a small part of that history. ~ Lee Smolin

Be particular. That is, without a doubt, the Best Advice Ever Given in the History of the Entire World. Consider, if you will, the profound effect that following that advice would have on, say, your diet, your love life, your financial situation, your decision on whether to have that next drink. I mean, what do those two words not cover? ~ Jill Conner Browne

If things continue like this, the history of our age may one day be written under a caliphate's supervision . ~ David Selbourne

He understood that he shared certain features, habits and history with the war hero. But he was not him. He'd just had more success at living than at dying, ~ Richard Flanagan

History is full of religious wars; but, we must take care to observe, it was not the multiplicity of religions that produced these wars, it was the intolerating spirit which animated that one which thought she had the power of governing. ~ Montesquieu

'Operation Ajax' presents history in an entirely new way. It takes a true story and uses cutting-edge technology, never before used in this way, to bring it to spectacular life. ~ Stephen Kinzer

But, if recent history has taught us anything, it's that self-regulation doesn't work in finance, and that worries about reputation are a weak deterrent to corporate malfeasance. ~ James Surowiecki

Personally, my interests are ancient history and ancient civilizations. In my own life, I'd like to go to places like Easter Island. ~ Nicolas Cage

I like to define biology as the history of the earth and all its life - past, present, and future. To understand biology is to understand that all life is linked to the earth from which it came; it is to understand that the stream of life, flowing out of the dim past into the uncertain future, is in reality a unified force, though composed of an infinite number and variety of separate lives. ~ Rachel Carson

Like psychoanalysis, constitutional jurisprudence has become a game without rules. By defying the plain meaning of words, ignoring context and history, and using a little ingenuity, you can make the Constitution mean anything you like. ~ Joseph Sobran

The history of otaku culture is one of adaptation, of how to domesticate American culture. ~ Hiroki Azuma

It was a cruel world though. More than half of all children died before they could reach maturity, thanks to chronic epidemics and malnutrition. People dropped like flies from polio and tuberculosis and smallpox and measles. There probably weren't many people who lived past forty. Women bore so many children, they became toothless old hags by the time they were in their thirties. People often had to resort to violence to survive. Tiny children were forced to do such heavy labor that their bones became deformed, and little girls were forced to become prostitutes on a daily basis. Little boys too, I suspect. Most people led minimal lives in worlds that had nothing to do with richness of perception or spirit. City streets were full of cripples and beggars and criminals. Only a small fraction of the population could gaze at the moon with deep feeling or enjoy a Shakespeare play or listen to the beautiful music of Dowland. ~ Haruki Murakami

What is the thread of western civilization that distinguished its course in history? It has to do with the preoccupation of western man with his outward command and his sense of superiority. ~ Arthur Erickson

I went back to Dallas for a little while to finish my short film 'Rusty Forkblade.' It was not the instant success I thought it was going to be. There's a false narrative that if you make a short film right after senior year, you'll be plucked out to make a feature length film, and the rest is history. I didn't do that. ~ Evan Daugherty

I always loved watching people panic. The chaos it caused, the tangible scent of fear that always came afterwards. Panic, then fear. That's the way it always worked. The way their bodies froze up, the way their thoughts start racing as fast as their hearts, and the sweat that dripped down their foreheads, pungent sweat, sweet and hot. There were always people who tried futile control methods, like breathing, or repeating calming affirmations. And all the while, I admired their optimism. ~ Tess McLennan

If death ends all, if I have neither to hope for good to come nor to fear evil, I must ask myself what I am here for and how in these circumstances I must conduct myself. Now the answer to one of these questions is plain, but it is so unpalatable that most men will not face it. There is no reason for living and life has no meaning. We are here, inhabitants for a little while of a small planet, revolving around a minor star which is in turn one of unnumbered galaxies... The astronomer tells us.... this planet will eventually reach a condition when living things can no longer exist upon it and at long last the universe will attain that final state of equilibrium in which nothing more can happen. Aeons and aeons before this man will have disappeared. Is it possible to suppose that it will matter then that he ever existed? He will have been a chapter in the history of the universe as pointless as the chapter in which is written the life stories of the strange creatures that inhabited the primeval earth. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

With a rumble and a roar, an iron curtain is descending on Russian history. ~ Vasily Rozanov

It seems to me ... that I have always lived! I possess memories that go back to the Pharoahs. I see myself very clearly at different ages of history, practicing different professions ... My present personality is the result of my lost [past] personalities. ~ Gustave Flaubert

But in most places, the new global diet has involved a narrowing down of what people eat. Our world contains around seven thousand edible crops, yet 95 per cent of what we eat comes from just thirty of those crops. As omnivores, humans are designed to eat a varied diet, so there's something strange and wrong when, as a species, we become so limited in our choice of foods ~ Bee Wilson

Ribbentrop brushed aside the Jewish extermination events. He said that in the long view, historically, the Jews' extermination would always be a blot on German history, but that it was in a way attributable to the fact that Hitler had lost his sense of proportion and, because he was losing the war, went "wild" on the subject of the Jews. But the big historical issue was not that Jews had been exterminated but that Germany had really been oppressed and never given a chance. ~ Leon Goldensohn

Gradually it became known that the new race had a definite purpose, and that purpose was to chart and possess the whole country, regardless of the rights of its earlier inhabitants. Still the old chiefs cautioned their people to be patient, for, said they, the land is vast, both races can live on it, each in their own way. Let us therefore befriend them and trust their friendship. While they reasoned thus, the temptations of graft and self-aggrandizement overtook some of the leaders. ~ Charles Alexander Eastman

We are in the midst of the 6th largest extinction event in the history of the plant and the first caused by human action. ~ Graciela Chichilnisky

Major league baseball is about the history of the game. Baseball history is so important. It's so much more than money. ~ Joe Torre

Even non-religious folks should read the key Bible stories. It's essential for cultural literacy. Knowing these stories helps in understanding the many Biblical references in literature and art. ~ Kenneth E. Walsh

The memorable events of history are the visible effects of the invisible changes of human thought. ~ Gustave Le Bon

There was one great tomb more lordly than all the rest; huge it was, and nobly proportioned. On it was but one word, DRACULA. ~ Bram Stoker

Now into the small ceramic pan I grate the block of couverture. Almost at once the scent rises, the dark and loamy scent of bitter chocolate from the block. At this concentration it is slow to melt; the chocolate is very low in fat, and I will have to add butter and cream to the mixture to bring it to truffle consistency. But now it smells of history; of the mountains and forests of South America' of felled wood and spilled sap and campfire smoke. It smells of incense and patchouli; of the black gold of the Maya and the red gold of the Aztec; of stone and dust and of a young girl with flowers in her hair and a cup of pulque in her hand.
It is intoxicating; as it melts, the chocolate becomes glossy; steam rises from the copper pan, and the scent grows richer, blossoming into cinnamon and allspice and nutmeg; dark undertones of anise and espresso; brighter notes of vanilla and ginger. Now it is almost melted through. A gentle vapor rises from the pan. Now we have the true Theobroma, the elixir of the gods in volatile form, and in the steam I can almost see-
A young girl dancing with the moon. A rabbit follows at her heels. Behind her stands a woman with her head in shadow, so that for a moment she seems to look three ways-
But now the steam is getting too thick. The chocolate must be no warmer than forty-six degrees. Too hot, and the chocolate will scorch and streak. Too cool, and it will bloom white and dull. I know by the scent and the level of steam that we ar ~ Joanne Harris

Fear has always been a very important whistleblower. Our emotion and our history can provoke fear that may arrest us at any time or at any place. Above and beyond, fear might be contagious and its scent, sometimes sensual, sometimes mystical or animal, can exude the musty and arcane smell of destiny. ("One could still feel the smell of fear" ) ~ Erik Pevernagie

What you end up seeing when you look at history is that people who have been good at pushing the boundaries of possibility, and exploring those frontiers of good ideas and innovations, have rarely done it in moments of great inspiration. They don't just have a brilliant breakthrough idea out of nowhere and leap ahead of everyone else. ~ Steven Johnson

We can understand why one of the titles given to Jesus is that of 'prophet.' Jesus is the last and greatest of the prophets, the one who sums them up and goes further than all of them. He is the prophet of the last, but also of the best, chance. With him there takes place a shift that is both tiny and gigantic – a shift that follows on directly from the Old Testament but constitutes a decisive break as well. This is the complete elimination of the sacrificial for the first time – the end of divine violence and the explicit revelation of all that has gone before. It calls for a complete change of emphasis and a spiritual metamorphosis without precedent in the whole history of mankind. It also amounts to an absolute simplification of the relations between human beings, in so far as all the false differences between doubles are annulled – a simplification in the sense in which we speak of an algebraic simplification.
Throughout the texts of the Old Testament it was impossible to conclude the deconstruction of myths, rituals and law since the plenary revelation of the founding murder had not yet taken place. The divinity may be to some extent stripped of violence, but not completely so. That is why there is still an indeterminate and indistinct future, in which the resolution of the problem by human means alone – the face-to-face reconciliation that ought to result when people are alerted to the stupidity and uselessness of symmetrical violence – remains confused to a certai ~ Rene Girard

I looked at the woman crying over the doll and felt something else. I was sick of people acting against their own interests. Mooing about how to refinance the slaughterhouse. Putting skylights in the killing pen and pretending the bolt in the brain was a pathway to a better field. I paid my bill. Save your fucking pennies for a gun and a history book, I thought. ~ Vanessa Veselka

Value your freedom or you will lose it, teaches history. 'Don't bother us with politics', respond those who don't want to learn. ~ Richard Stallman

Harlem is not a playground for rich bankers and consultants. It's got students of all colors. It's got old people who keep history and tell tall tales. ~ Marcus Samuelsson

This is an exception of history, Romania. These are a group of Romans that more than 2000 years ago remained here. They have been contaminated from many different cultures, but the basic language is still the Vulgar Latin that was probably spoken 2000 years ago in Rome, with some integration from the Turkish and Slavic languages. The structure is Latin and they still use some expressions that we use in our dialect in Rome. This was impressive for me and helped me a lot to stay here. ~ Anonymous

The Scots (originally Irish, but by now Scotch) were at this time inhabiting Ireland, having driven the Irish (Picts) out of Scotland; while the Picts (originally Scots) were now Irish (living in brackets) and vice versa. It is essential to keep these distinctions clearly in mind (and verce visa). ~ W.C. Sellar

"For even the most childish intoxication with progress will soon be forced to recognize that writing and books have a function that is eternal. It will become evident that formulations in words and the handling on of these formulations through writing are not only important aids but actually the only means by which humanity can have a history and continuing consciousness of itself." ~ Hermann Hesse

From now on Anne saw herself as someone indelibly marked by suffering. Her letters to Sarah often ended with an allusion to her tragic history of bereavement, for she took to signing them "your poor unfortunate faithful Morley. ~ Anne Somerset

History was a tangled thing, people were resilient, and the one constant law of the world was that it would heal. ~ Brenna Yovanoff

I'm blown away by how happy you make me. Thank you for being there for me when I'm stupid enough to think I'd rather be alone. ~ Adam Silvera

When you go back and look at American history, it's not terribly different from Canadian history. If you weren't self-reliant on the prairie, you wouldn't survive. ~ Alan Greenspan

the word that the Buddha used for suffering, dukkha, actually has the more subtle meaning of "pervasive unsatisfactoriness," I was even more impressed. "Suffering" always sounded a bit melodramatic, even if a careful reading of history seemed to support it. "Pervasive unsatisfactoriness ~ Mark Epstein

The art of sensuality encompassing the exploration and experiencing of all our senses... Those images are being born from and through living the moments of eating favorite chocolate cake with ice-cream, tranquil meditating, walking the beach and feeling the warm breeze on your face and the soothing sand beneath your feet, watching a never repeating its symphony sunset, dancing and feeling your body move through space, smelling flowers in a garden, painting or working with clay, with your fingertips gently touching piano keys or pulling the tense strings of guitar, caressing your ears with the whispers of one's soul, diving into the depth of loving you eyes, and, joining in a passionate kiss of life...the life of the artist... ~ Oksana Rus

The social dynamics of human history, even more than that of biological evolution, illustrate the fundamental principle of ecological evolution - that everything depends on everything else. The nine elements that we have described in societal evolution of the three families of phenotypes - the phyla of things, organizations and people, the genetic bases in knowledge operating through energy and materials to produce phenotypes, and the three bonding relations of threat, integration and exchange - all interact on each other. ~ Kenneth E. Boulding

Recently I've been dreaming
of cursing old people
with little provocation,
because their culture
has a long history of enslaving,
raping, and segregating,
and they have special lights
which prevent us from dancing. ~ Matthew Rohrer

The events which transpired five thousand years ago; Five years ago or five minutes ago, have determined what will happen five minutes from now; five years From now or five thousand years from now. All history is a current event. ~ Dr. John

A good book is never exhausted. It goes on whispering to you from the wall. Books perfume and give weight to a room. A bookcase is as good as a view, as the sight of a city or a river. There are dawns and sunsets in books - storms, fogs, zephyrs.
I read about a family whose apartment consists of a series of spaces so strictly planned that they are obliged to give away their books as soon as they've read them. I think they have misunderstood the way books work.
Reading a book is only the first step in the relationship. After you've finished it, the book enters on its real career. It stand there as a badge, a blackmailer, a monument, a scar. It's both a flaw in the room, like a crack in the plaster, and a decoration. The contents of someone's bookcase are part of his history, like an ancestral portrait.
- in "About books; recoiling, rereading, retelling", The New York Times, February 22, 1987 ~ Anatole Broyard

Communists liked history very much. It just had to be the right history. They liked to remember it selectively. ~ Victoria Finlay

I have a unique history. There's no way to ever separate what your life would have been like if you had taken a different path. You have to embrace what is yours, and if you don't like it, you have to decide to change it. ~ Eve Plumb