It has always been the one mostly attributed to the Spanish-American Philosopher George Santayana, who wrote--paraphrasing--"Those who forget the lessons of history are doomed to relearn them:.
Those are not the exact words attributed to him.
But wiser words were never spoken or written.
And no words have ever been been more ignored.
Take a look back through history, and think a minute about how many times variations of the same events have been repeated throughout the history of humankind.
Take one of the more recent examples: World War 2.
Only a little more than 20 years after World War 1, a cataclysm that claimed the lives of half the population of Europe, another, even bigger war started--World War 2. And this war claimed even more lives, and was responsible for unleashing the Atomic bomb, currently the most frightening weapon of mass destruction known to the world.
The world now sits in dread of what might happen when and if World War 3 comes.
We, as a species, do not seem to be able to learn from our mistakes. Even mistakes that nearly wipe us out.
This is not the behavior of a rational race. And I fear that this behavior may be our doom.
On the other hand, however, we have survived these errors in judgment for centuries. Maybe someone IS looking out for us. For our own good.
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