Wikipedia

... it really seems as though old Hegel, in the guise of the World Spirit, were directing history from the grave and, with the greatest conscientiousness, causing everything to be re-enacted twice over, once as grand tragedy and the second time as rotten farce, Caussidière for Danton, L. Blanc for Robespierre, Barthélemy for Saint-Just, Flocon for Carnot, and the moon-calf together with the first available dozen debt-encumbered lieutenants for the little corporal and his band of marshals.

Engels in a letter to Marx, 1851

(As a side-note, neither Marx nor Engels believed this to be much more than a witty observation, meaning: They did not assume this was some sort of grand law of history, just a tendency of similar dynamics persisting and reoccurring.)

Those that don't know history (because they can't read)...