Original text (Chinese)
Truth becomes fiction when the fiction's true;
Real becomes not-real when the unreal's real.
One day, when spring has gone and youth has fled,
The Maiden and the flowers will both be dead.
A generation which ignores history has no past —and no future.
History, Stephen said, is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.
If we don’t care about our past we can’t have very much hope for our future.
I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past, — so good night!
Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Cao Xueqin (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.