George Santayana

Philosopher, essayist and novelist, 1863–1952. 1 explained quote.

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“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

George Santayana · 1905

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“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

George Santayana · The Life of Reason, Volume 1: Reason in Common Sense · 1905 · Philosopher

Part of Santayana's argument that progress depends on memory. He was writing about how individuals and societies learn, not giving a warning specifically about politics or war.

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About George Santayana

George Santayana was born in Madrid, raised in Boston and taught philosophy at Harvard, where his students included T. S. Eliot and Walter Lippmann. In 1912 he left the United States and spent the rest of his life in Europe, mostly in Rome, writing philosophy, poetry, essays and a best-selling novel, The Last Puritan.

Santayana wrote elegant, aphoristic prose, which is why lines from his books travel so far from their original context. His most famous sentence, about remembering the past, comes from a long philosophical work and is almost always quoted in a slightly different form.