| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Golden Sayings of Epictetus by Epictetus: added fuel to the fire. If overcome by a temptation of the flesh,
do not reckon it a single defeat, but that you have also
strengthened your dissolute habits. Habits and faculties are
necessarily affected by the corresponding acts. Those that were
not there before, spring up: the rest gain in strength and
extent. This is the account which Philosophers give of the origin
of diseases of the mind:--Suppose you have once lusted after
money: if reason sufficient to produce a sense of evil be
applied, then the lust is checked, and the mind at once regains
its original authority; whereas if you have recourse to no
remedy, you can no longer look for this return--on the contrary,
The Golden Sayings of Epictetus |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Nada the Lily by H. Rider Haggard: knew well that if I showed sign or uttered cry, then, having failed in
the trial, death would be my portion.
Then the king spoke again, "Dost thou swear by my head, Mopo, that no
son of mine was suckled in thy kraals?"
"I swear it, O king! I swear it by thy head," I answered.
And now, my father, the agony of the fire was such as may not be told.
I felt my eyes start forward in their sockets, my blood seemed to boil
within me, it rushed into my head, and down my face their ran two
tears of blood. But yet I held my hand in the fire and made no sign,
while the king and his councillors watched me curiously. Still, for a
moment Chaka said nothing, and that moment seemed to me as all the
Nada the Lily |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Lamentable Tragedy of Locrine and Mucedorus by William Shakespeare: towards your sweet self hath now increased to a great
flame, and will ere it be long consume my poor heart,
except you, with the pleasant water of your secret
fountain, quench the furious heat of the same. Alas, I
am a gentleman of good fame and name, majestical, in
parrel comely, in gate portly. Let not therefore your
gentle heart be so hard as to despise a proper tall, young
man of a handsome life, and by despising him, not only,
but also to kill him. Thus expecting time and tide, I bid
you farewell. Your servant, Signior Strumbo.
Oh wit! Oh pate! O memory! O hand! O ink! O paper!
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