Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

George Santayana was a Spanish philosopher and essayist who lived around the turn of the twentieth century. I had to look that up because I know nothing about him except that his name is attached to this aphorism about history and people being doomed to repeat it, so whenever I want to cite it elsewhere I first have to recall George Santayana’s name.

This is how you achieve immortality—come up with a pithy and insightful aphorism, and your name will live forever through the power of citation! (That is, unless someone else gets her name attached to it first.) No wonder the business of churning out Notable Quotables is so attractive.

Some people have beaten the game so well that quotes whose real authors’ identities have been lost to history end up getting attached to them instead. You know the crowd: Mark Twain, Albert Einstein, Oscar Wilde, Dorothy Parker, Abraham Lincoln. They’re like the default adoptive parents of orphaned quotes. Like Yogi Berra, you know you’ve got it made when “I really didn’t say everything I said” gets attributed to you.

Others have yet to reach those black-hole levels of quotation stardom. I wouldn’t know George Santayana except for his history-doomy quote, so as far as I know he’s a one-hit wonder. Sorry George. That’s still something to be proud of, though! You go, George!

I wonder how one gets into this business. Fame definitely helps you get your foot in the door—when I look up lists of One Hundred Most Famous Quotes of All Time, most of the authors are famous for other things than dreaming up quotations! The lesson here seems to be more If you are famous, people will be more inclined to hear what you say and less If you have deep and pithy things to say, you will become famous. Ah well.