Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. Past Quotations

Santayana's aphorism must be reversed: too often it is those who can remember the past who are condemned to repeat it.

It is useful to remember that history is to the nation as memory is to the individual. As a person deprived of memory becomes disorientated and lost, not knowing where they have been or where they are going , so a nation denied a conception of the past will be disabled in dealing with its present and its future.