Throughout his life, Baron Pierre de Coubertin was an outspoken advocate for the study of history. He believed the key to the future could only be found in the past, which makes his most famous act—the modern revival of an ancient sports festival—a clear reflection of his philosophy.  He was not alone in his faith in the past. His contemporary, the philosopher George Santayana, had published in 1905 his treatise, “The Life of Reason—or The Phases of Human Progress,” which contained the famous quote, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”  The Baron may have been familiar with Santayana’s work when he delivered the speech in 1919 that included today’s quote.  It was the speech in celebration of the “Twenty-Fifth Anniversary of the Proclamation of the Olympic Games.”

“Faced with a new world that must be ordered according to principles thought to be utopian until now, and that can now be applied, humanity must find all the strength it can in the heritage of the past in order to build its future.”