The first lesson of history is the good of evil. History does not repeat itself except in the minds of those who do not know history. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. A nation which does not know what it was yesterday, does not know what it is today, nor what it is trying to do. To study history means submitting to chaos and nevertheless retaining faith in order and meaning.
History is a people's memory, and without memory man is demoted to the lower animals.
Peoples and governments have never learned anything from history, or acted on principles deducible from it. History teaches us that men and nations behave wisely once they have exhausted all other alternatives. Our ignorance of history makes us libel our own times. People have always been like this. Universal history, the history of what man has accomplished in this world, is at bottom the history of the Great Men who have worked here.