history repeats itself first as tragedy second as farce meaning
The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon This book is the source of one of Marx's most quoted[7] statements, that history repeats itself, "the first as tragedy, then as farce", referring respectively to Napoleon I and to his nephew Louis Napoleon (Napoleon III):
George Santayana Santayana is popularly known for aphorisms, such as "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it",[3] "Only the dead have seen the end of war",[4] and the definition of beauty as "pleasure objectified".[5] Although an atheist, he always treasured the Spanish Catholic values, practices, and worldview in which he was raised.[citation needed] Santayana was a broad-ranging cultural critic spanning many disciplines.