Only by not forgetting the past can we be the master of the future." - Meaning and context.">
As quoted "Literary witness to century of turmoil" in China Daily (24 November 2003)
โ€œ

Only by not forgetting the past can we be the master of the future.

— Ba Jin

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "Only by not forgetting the past can we be the master of the future." in the context of "As quoted "Literary witness to century of turmoil" in China Daily (24 November 2003)" to mean that wisdom is timeless.

Quote Image
Source: Wikiquote: "Ba Jin" (Quotes) The 'What it means' explanation text was generated by Google Gemini Flash (accessed January 18, 2026). https://gemini.google.com/app
Ba Jin

About Ba Jin

Li Yaotang ๆŽๅฐงๆฃ  (or Li Feigan; Zi: ่Šพ็”˜) (November 25 1904 โ€“ October 17 2005) was a Chinese writer and anarchist; he was most famous under his pen name of Ba Jin (ๅทด้‡‘, also written Pa Chin). He created this pseudonym in 1929 from the first syllable of Bakunin and of the last syllable of Kropotkin, the famous Russian anarchists.