| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Golden Sayings of Epictetus by Epictetus: itself, free from hindrance and perfect, and its parts for the
use of the whole. Not other creature is capable of comprehending
His administration thereof; but the reasonable being Man
possesses faculties for the consideration of all these things--
not only that he is himself a part, but what part he is, and how
it is meet that the parts should give place to the whole. Nor is
this all. Being naturally constituted noble, magnanimous, and
free, he sees that the things which surround him are of two
kinds. Some are free from hindrance and in the power of the will.
Other are subject to hindrance, and depend on the will of other
men. If then he place his own good, his own best interest, only
The Golden Sayings of Epictetus |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Psychology of Revolution by Gustave le Bon: electricity, and the sewers are mutually jealous, and never
attempt to work together. This anarchy and indiscipline
naturally cost enormous sums of money, and a private firm which
operated in this manner would soon find itself bankrupt.
3. Universal Suffrage and its Representatives.
Among the dogmas of democracy perhaps the most fundamental of all
and the most attractive is that of universal suffrage. It gives
the masses the idea of equality, since for a moment at least rich
and poor, learned and ignorant, are equal before the electoral
urn. The minister elbows the least of his servants, and during
this brief moment the power of one is as great as the others.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Father Damien by Robert Louis Stevenson: welcomed in a public-house. A man sprang to his feet; I am not at
liberty to give his name, but from what I heard I doubt if you
would care to have him to dinner in Beretania Street. "You
miserable little -------" (here is a word I dare not print, it
would so shock your ears). "You miserable little ------," he
cried, "if the story were a thousand times true, can't you see you
are a million times a lower ----- for daring to repeat it?" I wish
it could be told of you that when the report reached you in your
house, perhaps after family worship, you had found in your soul
enough holy anger to receive it with the same expressions; ay, even
with that one which I dare not print; it would not need to have
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