萧伯纳：我们从历史中汲取的教训，就是我们从历史中学不到任何教训。(George Bernard Shaw：We learn from history that we learn nothing from history.) 马克 吐温：历史学家若要道出实情，就得撒谎，他通常会数倍夸大实情，要不然，读者就无法领会。（Mark Twain：A historian who would convey the truth must lie. Often he must enlarge the truth by diameters, otherwise his reader would not be able to see it.） 王尔德：任何人都能名留青史，但只有伟人才能书写历史。(Oscar Wilde：Anybody can make history. Only a great man can write it.)。 马克思：历史常自行重演，第一次是悲剧，第二次是闹剧。(Karl Marx：History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.) 。 瓦莱里说：历史是使人避免重蹈覆辙的学科。(Paul Valery：History is the science of what never happens twice.) 爱因斯坦赞誉这位保罗 瓦莱里为「唯一未受盛名腐化的人」。 吉本说：我仅依赖一盏明灯引导我前行，而那盏明灯就是经验；我深知，除了经历，决无别的可用来判断未来。（Edward Gibbon：I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided, and that is the lamp of experience. I know no way of judging of the future but by the past.）爱德华 吉本历经二十余年的心血，完成六卷的《罗马帝国衰亡史》。