Historical Pattern Quotes

All great nations inevitably end up committing suicide.

Of the twenty-two civilizations that have appeared in history, nineteen of them collapsed when they reached the moral state the United States is in now.

At regular intervals in Chinese history it suffers complete collapse and the central government disintegrates.

Throughout the history of mankind there have been murderers and tyrants; and while it may seem momentarily that they have the upper hand, they have always fallen. Always.

Reforms in Russia are very tragic, but they always end in a farce.

Even if we did achieve what we wanted with a very small state, we'd just be resetting the clock back to 1776, and it would roll forward exactly the same way again.

We have depressions about every 10-20 years—just long enough for the current generation to forget the last depression.

That is the key to history. Terrific energy is expended ... civilizations are built up ... excellent institutions devised; but each time something goes wrong. Some fatal flaw always brings the selfish and cruel people to the top, and then it all slides back into misery and ruin.

Every high civilization decays by forgetting obvious things.

When you read history you that kings who have come to the end of their tether, as a rule, would suffer death rather than give up part of their power.

[H]istory assures us that civilizations decay quite leisurely.

Blending hard-bitten realism with long-view optimism, Obama said that every 20 or 30 years brings a new cycle of pessimism in America.

From Paul to Stalin, the popes who have chosen Caesar have prepared the way for Caesars who quickly learn to despise popes.

Tout re volutionnaire finit en oppresseur ou en he re tique. Every revolutionary ends as an oppressor or a heretic.

Every civilization that has ever existed has ultimately collapsed.

[In ancient Rome,] why did the senate after killing Caesar turn around and give the government to his nephew? Why did France after they got rid of the king and that whole system turn around and give it to Napoleon? It's the same thing with Germany and Hitler.

Look back over the past, with its changing empires that rose and fell, and you can foresee the future, too.

A new bubble will replace the old one. A new technology will come along to fix the messes we made with the last one. In a way, that is the story of the settling of the Americas, the supposedly inexhaustible frontier to which Europeans escaped.

Violent men have not been known in history to die to a man. They die up to a point.

All history consists of successive excursions from a single starting-point, to which man returns again and again to organize yet another search for a durable scale of values.

All his successors gone before him have done 't; and all his ancestors that come after him may.

Historically, aggression unanswered has led to more aggression.

One of the most constant laws of history is … immediately [if] any one class becomes preponderant—nobles, clergy, army, or the people—it speedily tends to enslave others.

History repeats itself and that's just how it goes.

History repeats itself, but in such cunning disguise that we never detect the resemblance until the damage is done.