| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Father Sergius by Leo Tolstoy: had always seemed loathsome to himself on account of his
sinfulness; and when he remembered the tender feelings with which
he had then met an old man who was bringing a drunken soldier to
him to ask alms; and how he had received HER, it seemed to him
that he had then possessed love also. But now? And he asked
himself whether he loved anyone, whether he loved Sofya Ivanovna,
or Father Seraphim, whether he had any feeling of love for all
who had come to him that day--for that learned young man with
whom he had had that instructive discussion in which he was
concerned only to show off his own intelligence and that he had
not lagged behind the times in knowledge. He wanted and needed
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Protagoras by Plato: attributing to the Lacedaemonians this excellence in philosophy and
speculation: If a man converses with the most ordinary Lacedaemonian, he
will find him seldom good for much in general conversation, but at any
point in the discourse he will be darting out some notable saying, terse
and full of meaning, with unerring aim; and the person with whom he is
talking seems to be like a child in his hands. And many of our own age and
of former ages have noted that the true Lacedaemonian type of character has
the love of philosophy even stronger than the love of gymnastics; they are
conscious that only a perfectly educated man is capable of uttering such
expressions. Such were Thales of Miletus, and Pittacus of Mitylene, and
Bias of Priene, and our own Solon, and Cleobulus the Lindian, and Myson the
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Black Dwarf by Walter Scott: this the castle in which one powerful enough to be sued to by a
fair suppliant is likely to hold his residence? I but mocked
thee, girl, when I said I would relieve thee."
"Then must I depart, and face my fate as I best may!"
"No!" said the Dwarf, rising and interposing between her and the
door, and motioning to her sternly to resume her seat--"No! you
leave me not in this way; we must have farther conference. Why
should one being desire aid of another? Why should not each be
sufficient to itself? Look round you--I, the most despised and
most decrepit on Nature's common, have required sympathy and help
from no one. These stones are of my own piling; these utensils I
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