Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
- George Santayana
That’s the full quote that people like to reduce to the final sentence.
Documents are a species’ way of remembering the past and establishing core ideals so that future generations don’t have to reinvent those wheels.
Not to say any given document is without flaws or captures the right values, and as our societies grow and mature so too should the values that we align ourselves with.
- George Santayana
That’s the full quote that people like to reduce to the final sentence.
Documents are a species’ way of remembering the past and establishing core ideals so that future generations don’t have to reinvent those wheels.
Not to say any given document is without flaws or captures the right values, and as our societies grow and mature so too should the values that we align ourselves with.