Skip to content
quotesby

About this quote

What does it mean?
History tends to repeat itself, and this cycle is a fundamental flaw in human progress.
In plain terms
We keep making the same mistakes over and over.
What can you take from it?
Failing to learn from the past leads to recurring errors.

Where it applies

  • historical analysis
  • policy making
  • personal growth

Putting it to work

  • study past errors
  • break cycles
  • learn from history

Questions to consider

  • What lessons have we ignored?
  • How do we avoid repeating the past?

Another view

History does not always repeat exactly; context often changes outcomes.

More from Clarence Darrow

  1. When I was a boy I was told that anybody could become President. I'm beginning to believe it.

    Permalink to quote #18
  2. It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but rather the one most adaptable to change.

    Permalink to quote #20
  3. Calvin Coolidge was the greatest man who ever came out of Plymouth Corner, Vermont.

    Permalink to quote #17

Related quotes

  1. There are only two or three human stories, and they go on repeating themselves as fiercely as if they had never happened before; like the larks in this country…

    Willa CatherWilla Cather quote #16
  2. I've got news for Mr. Santayana: we're doomed to repeat the past no matter what. That's what it is to be alive.

    Kurt VonnegutKurt Vonnegut quote #135
  3. 'Stalin was a guy like we are, not only that he considered himself a revolutionary and lived like one, but he was a character in the truest sense of the word .…

    Joschka FischerJoschka Fischer quote #1