| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan by Honore de Balzac: with a look which seemed to say: "He is bewitched!"
During this short conversation Madame de Cadignan was protected by
Madame d'Espard, whose protection was like that of the lightning-rod
which draws the flash. When d'Arthez returned to the general
conversation Maxime de Trailles was saying:--
"With Diane, depravity is not an effect but a cause; perhaps she owes
that cause to her exquisite nature; she doesn't invent, she makes no
effort, she offers you the choicest refinements as the inspiration of
a spontaneous and naive love; and it is absolutely impossible not to
believe her."
This speech, which seemed to have been prepared for a man of
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Philebus by Plato: pleasure, but that of others,--of our family, of our country, of mankind.
The desire of this, and even the sacrifice of our own interest to that of
other men, may become a passion to a rightly educated nature. The
Utilitarian finds a place in his system for this virtue and for every
other.'
Good or happiness or pleasure is thus regarded as the true and only end of
human life. To this all our desires will be found to tend, and in
accordance with this all the virtues, including justice, may be explained.
Admitting that men rest for a time in inferior ends, and do not cast their
eyes beyond them, these ends are really dependent on the greater end of
happiness, and would not be pursued, unless in general they had been found
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Works of Samuel Johnson by Samuel Johnson: accidental advantage co-operates with merit, neither
perseverance nor adventure attracts attention, and
learning and bravery sink into the grave, without
honour or remembrance.
But ambition and vanity generally expect to be
gratified on easier terms. It has been long observed,
that what is procured by skill or labour to the first
possessor, may be afterwards transferred for money;
and that the man of wealth may partake all the
acquisitions of courage without hazard, and all the
products of industry without fatigue. It was easily
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