Those Who Do Not Learn From

This is a paraphrase drawn from debates recorded in Sima Qian's Records of the Grand Historian concerning Qin Shi Huang's Burning of the Books in 213 BCE. On the advice of his chief minister Li Si, the emperor ordered the destruction of non-Legalist texts — histories, philosophical works, and literature — to suppress heterodox thought and consolidate ideological control. The precise wording attributed here is a modern interpretive paraphrase; the Shiji records Li Si's memorial proposing the burning, not a direct quotation from the emperor in this formulation.