"Hegel remarks somewhere that all great, world-historical facts and personages occur, as it were, twice. He has forgotten to add: the first time as tragedy, the second as farce."
— Karl Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte
They say the next big thing is here,
That the revolution's near;
But to me it seems quite clear
That it's all just a little bit of history repeating.
That the revolution's near;
But to me it seems quite clear
That it's all just a little bit of history repeating.
— "History Repeating", by the Propellerheads and Shirley Bassey.
Don't put your trust in revolutions. They always come around again. That's why they're called revolutions. People die, and nothing changes.
History repeats itself. That's one of the things wrong with history.
— Clarence Darrow
All this has happened before and will happen again.
— Numerous folks in Battlestar Galactica (Originally a quote from Peter Pan)
History comes full circle. Sometimes humanity survives, other times.... it's obliterated. We tell stories to help us remember history. To keep us from reigniting a war that could no doubt destroy another planet and perhaps another race. I wish the best of those who find a fallen meteor, who uncover a little secret, who follow the trail, who reconstruct my nightmare.
— Grizzly One/Jason Bates, Battlezone (1998)
Those who fail to remember History are doomed to repeat it.
— George Santayana, The Life of Reason
Time begins and then time ends
And then time begins once again
It is happening now, it has happened before
It will surely happen again
— the Time Prophet, Lexx ("Brigadoom")
That which has happened is a warning. To forget it is guilt. It must be continually remembered. It was possible for this to happen, and it remains possible for it to happen again at any minute. Only in knowledge can it be prevented.
— Karl Jaspers, referring to the Holocaust.
Garrosh: Step aside, pandaren. You confront a force beyond reckoning.
Taran Zhu: Your father dabbled in powers "beyond reckoning". Where is he now?
Taran Zhu: Your father dabbled in powers "beyond reckoning". Where is he now?
History is important, gentlemen! If you can't learn from it... you're destined to repeat it.
— Professor Bartholomew Oobleck, RWBY
Was die Erfahrung aber und die Geschichte lehren, ist dieses, daß Völker und Regierungen niemals etwas aus der Geschichte gelernt.
What we learn from history is that we never learn from history.
— Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Geschichte (Lectures on the Philosophy of History), 1832
Zu Jeder Zeit
An Jedem Ort
Bleibt Das Tun
Der Menschen Das Gleiche
(In every time, in every place, the deeds of men remain the same.)
He will come back.
He always does.
We have a place for him.
— Trailer of Five Night's at Freddy's 3
History is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace, and revolution continue on forever.
— Mariemaia Kushrenada, Mobile Suit Gundam Wing: Endless Waltz
Everything repeats over and over again. No one learns anything because no one lives long enough to see the pattern.
— Marceline, Adventure Time ("Checkmate")
"The pattern has repeated itself more times than you can fathom. Organic civilizations rise, evolve, advance. And at the apex of their glory, they are extinguished."
— Sovereign, Mass Effect
"People say that history repeats itself. This would be exactly true, if time were not always moving forward. It once had a beginning, and it will have an end, stretching the circle of history into a spiral. Every turn, every event or action is a repetition of what had happened before, yet it is never exactly the same."
"Take the story of the young Gaiar, a story of the foolish, the brave and the treacherous — this happened so many times in the past, and this will happen again, until the end of time. Such is man's part in this world."
—Ending Narration, Hammerfight
Herc: You best watch your ass, cause the slingers out here? They're like the crack babies' babies.
Poot: Man, every year, everybody's like: "Yeah, these kids out here, they're a new breed. I ain't never seen nothing like this before. This the end of the world now."
Carver: Look around, fuckhead. This seem like the dawn of a new day to you?
Poot: Man, every year, everybody's like: "Yeah, these kids out here, they're a new breed. I ain't never seen nothing like this before. This the end of the world now."
Carver: Look around, fuckhead. This seem like the dawn of a new day to you?
The history book on the shelf
Is always repeating itself
Is always repeating itself
—ABBA, "Waterloo"
It'll start again, chief. It always does. It's what makes monsters monstrous, in a way. We can be killed, but we come back. When I'm fully opaque, some other idealist or madman will start to disappear. Knowledge is out in the world and can't be taken back. This town isn't just a graveyard, it's a spawning ground. Sure, we come here to die, but we also come to be reborn. And many of us are from here. Just like you.
—The Man, The Chill Clutch Of The Unknown, Kim Newman
"Every few generations the really, really bad ideas come back around for another go."
Time is a circle. We know this. Events repeat themselves. All our models tell us that. The Plagues of Egypt being a one time occurrence was a statistical unlikelihood. Hence we are not surprised. We rarely are.
—Bong Cha, The Secret World
Tilly: It's just like in your stories, Gramma! Every generation, the kids have to stop the old folks from givin' up on this place!
Cricket: Yeah, Gramma! The stuff in the box isn't the treasure, the farm is!
Cricket: Yeah, Gramma! The stuff in the box isn't the treasure, the farm is!
—Big City Greens, "Family Legacy"
"Shit, man, when I heard we was after Hussein, I was like, 'Really? That’s so '80s.' The whole war seemed like a bad VH1 special. Hussein's back and Bush is back and Cheney’s back and Paula Abdul's back. Shit, before you know it, it’ll be Hammer time again. 'Stop! Hammer time!'"'
— Chris Rock, Never Scared, on the 2003 Iraq War
LeBron James: Well, Bugs Bunny, I need to assemble an elite team of A-plus ballplayers to help crush this Al G. guy. And I need to do it before that game clock runs down.
Bugs Bunny: Hol...hold up, doc. So you want me, a talking cartoon bunny, to play with you, an NBA superstar, in a high-stakes basketball game? [smirks at the camera] Sounds awfully familiar.
LeBron: Who are you talking to? But yeah, that actually sums it up well.
Bugs Bunny: Hol...hold up, doc. So you want me, a talking cartoon bunny, to play with you, an NBA superstar, in a high-stakes basketball game? [smirks at the camera] Sounds awfully familiar.
LeBron: Who are you talking to? But yeah, that actually sums it up well.
"Politicians run on the same 30-year nostalgia cycle as pop culture. In The '80s, Reagan cashed in on being a 50s TV star, and in The '90s, Clinton cashed in on being a 60s activist. And right at the changeover of 30 years since the 80s to 30 years since the 90s, we had another reactionary, iconoclastic TV star running against another white-haired, folksy liberal who's not as progressive as he sells himself, and- Oh, my god, in 2024, the Republicans are going to run the next W, aren't they? (sighs in exasperation) Ugh..."
— Innuendo Studios, "CO-VIDs: the 90's neoliberal fantasia as experienced by daria morgendorffer, millennial
"
"History would not repeat itself here, Kyril swore that would not happen. That was his duty as the First Hunter. He would not fail here.
"That Cracked article I mentioned earlier called Robin Thicke the new Vanilla Ice, and it lists a whole ton of connections between them: public images that fell apart, one big hit that dwarfs all the others, getting sued for plagiarism..., but there's one big connection that it doesn't mention, which is that they were both destroyed by the same song that made them huge."
— Todd in the Shadows, Trainwreckords: "Paula" by Robin Thicke
"I'm first out again. I'm out first again. Every series, I'm out first."
— Jimmy Solidarity realises he's the first to permanently die for the third time in the series, Double Life SMP, Day 5
Amethyst: We appear to have found the very ancient burial site of an Aboriginal Australian. Their civilization thrived on this continent for forty thousand years, until a more advanced group of humans from Europe arrived and conquered them, taking away their land and freedom.
Brianna: Kind of like what the rats are doing right now?
Amethyst: (defensively) We're not conquering you! We… this is the only way to ensure everyone's mutual safety! Why can't you see that?!
Brianna: Kind of like what the rats are doing right now?
Amethyst: (defensively) We're not conquering you! We… this is the only way to ensure everyone's mutual safety! Why can't you see that?!
