Historical Analogy Quotes

History may not repeat, but it often rhymes.

In the same spirit, when the automobile arrived, there were those that declared the horse to be the most perfect form of locomotion.

Look at electricity in human history - it took a few decades for electricity to really revolutionize the American economy. And the Internet will be the same. At some point in the future, we will arrive at a new era of low-hanging fruit.

We do not know whether Hitler is going to found a new Islam. He is already on the way; he is like Muhammad.

No one ever really 'learns' from history, because choices never present themselves in exactly the same way, and because you can always choose similarities and differences to fit current needs.

Americans treat history like a cookbook. Whenever they are uncertain what to do next, they turn to history and look up the proper recipe, invariably designated "the lesson of history.

I call on the Western democracies and primarily on the leader of the free world, the United States: Do not repeat the dreadful mistake of 1938, when enlightened European democracies decided to sacrifice Czechoslovakia for a convenient temporary solution... Israel will not be Czechoslovakia.

Everyone who wants to know what will happen ought to examine what has happened: everything in this world in any epoch has their replicas in antiquity.

Any time you make an analogy to horrific people in history, Mussolini or Hitler, people say, 'Oh, you're exaggerating, you're talking about, it's hyperbole.' Maybe it is. ... But I would say is that if you are not concerned that democracy could produce bad people, I don't think you're really thinking this through too much.

How is this any different than the big boat argument of people when it came to African-Americans after the Civil War, decided, 'Put them on a boat and send them back where they came from?' You know, he says it in polite language, but that's what Romney's been saying, 'Get home where you came from, start all over again.'

History is not, of course, a cookbook offering pretested recipes. It teaches by analogy, not by maxims. It can illuminate the consequences of actions in comparable situations, yet each generation must discover for itself what situations are in fact comparable.

I’ve been listening to how the Roman Empire fell and all I can say is, it didn’t fall nearly fast enough!”-Iggy

We are at the 1908 Hurley washing machine stage with the Internet.

Like the attack on Pearl Harbor, another hinge event in American history, 9/11 was a great tactical victory for America's enemies. But in both these cases, the tactical success of the attacks was not matched by strategic victories. Quite the reverse.

Europe began as the relatively empty, uncivilized Wild West of Asia; then the Western Hemisphere became the Wild West of Europe. Now the sun has set in our West and risen once more in the East.

Sooner or later the Internet will become profitable. It's an old story played before by canals, railroads and automobiles.

"History repeats itself" and "History never repeats itself" are about equally true ... We never know enough about the infinitely complex circumstances of any past event to prophesy the future by analogy.

I think one of the great disasters (in military history) is the way that the Second World War has become the defining reference point for every crisis and every conflict.

America is the new Roman Empire. Remember what happened to Rome.

History can tell us what happened in the past. But it cannot assert that it must happen again in the future.

World War II had been such a tremendous success story for this country that the political and military leadership began to assume that they would prevail simply because of who they were. We were like the British at the turn of the 19th century.

If U.S. Grant had been leading a team of baseball players, they'd have second guessed him all the way to the doorknob of the Appomattox Courthouse.

If you want to know where you would have stood on slavery before the Civil War, don’t look at where you stand on slavery today. Look at where you stand on animal rights.

You know, the Emancipation Proclamation was like giving freedom to domestic animals.

American football seems to resemble soccer in that one scores by putting the ball through the opponent's goal; but football, truly is about land. The Settlers want to move the line of scrimmage Westward, the Native Americans want to move it East.