| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Apology by Plato: the citizens, inasmuch as they are my brethren. For know that this is the
command of God; and I believe that no greater good has ever happened in the
state than my service to the God. For I do nothing but go about persuading
you all, old and young alike, not to take thought for your persons or your
properties, but first and chiefly to care about the greatest improvement of
the soul. I tell you that virtue is not given by money, but that from
virtue comes money and every other good of man, public as well as private.
This is my teaching, and if this is the doctrine which corrupts the youth,
I am a mischievous person. But if any one says that this is not my
teaching, he is speaking an untruth. Wherefore, O men of Athens, I say to
you, do as Anytus bids or not as Anytus bids, and either acquit me or not;
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Of The Nature of Things by Lucretius: The future times may carry, or what be
That chance may bring, or what the issue next
Awaiting us. Nor by prolonging life
Take we the least away from death's own time,
Nor can we pluck one moment off, whereby
To minish the aeons of our state of death.
Therefore, O man, by living on, fulfil
As many generations as thou may:
Eternal death shall there be waiting still;
And he who died with light of yesterday
Shall be no briefer time in death's No-more
Of The Nature of Things |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from 'Twixt Land & Sea by Joseph Conrad: hair's breadth. Directly the rumble of the gunboat's cable had
ceased, Heemskirk came down heavily from the bridge.
"Call a sampan" he said, in a gloomy tone, as he passed the sentry
at the gangway, and then moved on slowly towards the spot where
Jasper, the object of many awed glances, stood looking at the deck,
as if lost in a brown study. Heemskirk came up close, and stared
at him thoughtfully, with his fingers over his lips. Here he was,
the favoured vagabond, the only man to whom that infernal girl was
likely to tell the story. But he would not find it funny. The
story how Lieutenant Heemskirk - No, he would not laugh at it. He
looked as though he would never laugh at anything in his life.
'Twixt Land & Sea |
