Re: a Santayana saying

Posted by montanius on 2013/12/2 23:29:59

Yes, I agree. Actually the first one is a translation of a variant, namely "Those who do not remember history are condemned to repeat it" - which is a misquote.
(This saying has been misquoted so many times that I find this saying very witty: "Those who misquote George Santayana are condemned to paraphrase him."

As for 重蹈覆辙: if I understand this idiom well, it expresses something negative. But, in my opinion, the original saying does not state what you are condemned to repeat is wrong or 不舒服。 It would be interesting to ask someone (who does not know the original) to translate the Mandarin one to English. I think it'd run more or less like this:
Those who forget the past are condemned to repeat their mistakes.

Sorry for writing so much, I had a strong coffee...