| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Hiero by Xenophon: believes that anything a tyrant gives him is indeed his own, until he
is well beyond the donor's jurisdiction.
So much for friends, and as to enemies conversely. How can you say
"most power of triumphing over our enemies," when every tyrant knows
full well they are all his enemies, every man of them, who are
despotically ruled by him? And to put the whole of them to death or to
imprison them is hardly possible; or who will be his subjects
presently? Not so, but knowing they are his enemies, he must perform
this dexterous feat:[14] he must keep them at arm's length, and yet be
compelled to lean upon them.
[14] Lit. "he must at one and the same moment guard against them, and
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Parmenides by Plato: Of course.
And the things which are other than the one will be many; for if the things
which are other than the one were neither one nor more than one, they would
be nothing.
True.
But, seeing that the things which participate in the one as a part, and in
the one as a whole, are more than one, must not those very things which
participate in the one be infinite in number?
How so?
Let us look at the matter thus:--Is it not a fact that in partaking of the
one they are not one, and do not partake of the one at the very time when
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Juana by Honore de Balzac: him all yourself; he wants to know all and he will know all. Do not
ask what mysterious telegraph it was which conveyed to him in the
twinkling of an eye, at any hour, in any place, that story, that bit
of news, that scandal; do not ask what prompts him. That telegraph is
a social mystery; no observer can report its effects. Of many
extraordinary instances thereof, one may suffice: The assassination of
the Duc de Berry, which occurred at the Opera-house, was related
within ten minutes in the Ile-Saint-Louis. Thus the opinion of the 6th
of the line as to its quartermaster filtered through society the night
on which he gave his first ball.
Diard was therefore debarred from succeeding in society. Henceforth
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