Leo Strauss on history

It is as absurd to expect members of philosophy departments to be philosophers as it is to expect members of art departments to be artists.

Democracy, in a word, is meant to be an aristocracy which has broadened into a universal aristocracy.

Liberal education is the ladder by which we try to ascend from mass democracy to democracy as originally meant.

History doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme.

The man who has no sense of history, is like a man who has no ears or eyes.

Adolf Hitler1889–1945

There is nothing new in the world except the history you do not know.

Harry S. Truman1884–1972