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Question:

mandellg
mandellg
Teacher
High School - 12th Grade

Who said, "Those who forget history are condemned to repeat it?"

This quote is used so frequently and oftentimes not quoted in this manner, yet universally accepted as such a great quote.

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Posted by mandellg on Thursday April 9, 2009 at 7:11 PM and tagged with cause and effect in history, history.

Answers:


  1. dbello Teacher
    High School - 12th Grade

    eNotes Editor

    The quote you are referring to was originally written as follows:

    'Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it'----George Santayana From his work; Life of Reason, Reason in Common Sense 1905. It should be noted that William Shirer included the quote as an epigraph in his literary work The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich in 1959. The book was extremely popular when it was published and as such could have lended a hand in the popularity of the quote.

    Sources:
    http://www.history.org

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    Posted by dbello on Thursday April 9, 2009 at 7:55 PM


  2. sanjiwan Student
    College - Senior

    This perticular saying has ,many times, been changed over the time. However, the meaning remained intact: we should not forget and repeat the mistakes of the past.

    It was for the first time used by Mr George Santayana, a Spanish born American author of the late nineteenth & early twentieth centuries,in his book Life of Reason,Reason in common sense, Scribner`s 1905   Page 284.However, the actual words are the followings:``Those who can not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.``   http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=495329

    Sources:
    http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=495329

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    Posted by sanjiwan on Saturday April 11, 2009 at 1:09 AM