译文：借鉴前代兴衰，考察当下得失。《通鉴》的写作宗旨，直指现实关怀。
Art is humanity's last line of defense.
The world owes all its onward impulses to men ill at ease; the happy man inevitably confines himself within ancient limits.
We are all alone, born alone, die alone, and—in spite of True Romance magazines—we shall all someday look back on our lives and see that, in spite of our company, we were alone the whole way.
Mathematics is not just about numbers, equations, computations, or algorithms: it is about understanding.