Skip to content
quotesby

About this quote

What does it mean?
Remembering past experiences and history is necessary to control and shape the future.
In plain terms
If we remember the past we can control our future.
What can you take from it?
Remembering the past is essential to shaping the future.

Where it applies

  • planning
  • history
  • decision making

Putting it to work

  • historical study
  • lessons learned
  • future planning

Questions to consider

  • What lessons from your past guide your future?
  • How does history influence your choices?

Another view

Sometimes focusing too much on the past can limit future possibilities.

More from Ba Jin

  1. Before my eyes are many miserable scenes, the suffering of others and myself forces my hands to move. I become a machine for writing.

    Permalink to quote #7
  2. I am a person always full of contradictions... It was hard to choose whether to devote myself to revolution as a soldier or as a writer.

    Permalink to quote #9
  3. I write just because the fire of my emotion is burning. Had I not, I would not have been able to find peace.

    Permalink to quote #6

Related quotes

  1. The best of prophets of the future is the past.

    Lord ByronLord Byron quote #34
  2. Till the Future dares Forget the Past, his fate and fame shall be An echo and a light unto eternity!

    Percy Bysshe ShelleyPercy Bysshe Shelley quote #137
  3. A people's memory is history. A people without a history can grow neither wiser nor better.

    Isaac Leib PeretzIsaac Leib Peretz quote #1