My least favourite maxim of all time most certainly belongs to George Santayana:  “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”  Its banal ubiquity has not increased its charm any. Remembering the past is usually a necessarily step to repeating it. Historical records of religious and clannish rivalries, confidence games and marital treacheries, and tragic hubris and the rest of it are no doubt worth remembering, but not for any contraceptive function.