What experience and history teach is this — that nations and governments have never learned anything from history, or acted upon any lessons they might have drawn from it.
Good advice is always certain to be ignored, but that's no reason not to give it.
Every blessing ignored becomes a curse.
Advice is seldom welcome; and those who want it the most always want it the least.
Don't ask questions you don't want the answers to. It's just common sense that I learned the hard way - I keep touching the fire. I'll touch it even though you told me it's hot, even though it's burned me before.
God knows why nobody ever learns from the preceding generation - but they don't.
How is it possible to expect that mankind will take advice when they will not so much as take warning.
... the fires of neglect.
Referring to the Los Angeles riot of 1992
Progress is man’s indifference to the lessons of history.
We hate those who will not take our advice, and despise them who do.
Advice is seldom welcome; and those who want it the most always like it the least.
In 1975, the collapse of a cascade of Chinese dams during a flood killed a hundred and seventy-one thousand people, but the event is rarely discussed, and the names of the victims are largely unrecorded today.
Advice when most needed is least heeded
The warnings of the last 4 years have been ignored. As a result, every single alternative before us is accompanied by grave risks.
Obama never listened to anyone, always thought he was smarter than every expert in the room, and treated every meeting as an opportunity to lecture everyone else. This led to real-world disasters, like Syria and the rise of Isis.
When your mother asks, 'Do you want a piece of advice?' it is a mere formality. It doesn't matter if you answer yes or no. You're going to get it anyway.
To offer change to a Spaniard was like offering a drink to a confirmed alcoholic.
History is an endless repetition of the wrong way of living.
I cannot cure myself of that most woeful of youth's follies - thinking that those who care about us will care for the things that mean much to us.
Why must conversions always come so late? Why do people always apologize to corpses?
Unfortunately, sometimes people don't hear you until you scream.
Lessons taught but never learned, all around us anger burns. Guide the future by the past. Long ago the mould was cast.
I've got to start listening to those quiet, nagging doubts.
People die as you elect new apostles of neglect.
History repeats itself because no one listens the first time.
