A few quotations to start

History is a guide to navigation in perilous times. History is who we are and why we are the way we are. David C. McCullough

No harm's done to history by making it something someone would want to read.
David McCullough

We learn from history that we learn nothing from history.
George Bernard Shaw

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

What we do about history matters. The often repeated saying that those who forget the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them has a lot of truth in it. But what are 'the lessons of history'? The very attempt at definition furnishes ground for new conflicts. History is not a recipe book; past events are never replicated in the present in quite the same way. Historical events are infinitely variable and their interpretations are a constantly shifting process. There are no certainties to be found in the past.
Gerda Lerner

We can learn from history how past generations thought and acted, how they responded to the demands of their time and how they solved their problems. We can learn by analogy, not by example, for our circumstances will always be different than theirs were. The main thing history can teach us is that human actions have consequences and that certain choices, once made, cannot be undone. They foreclose the possibility of making other choices and thus they determine future events.
Gerda Lerner