| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Meno by Plato: was a good teacher, of his own virtue?
ANYTUS: Yes certainly,--if he wanted to be so.
SOCRATES: But would he not have wanted? He would, at any rate, have
desired to make his own son a good man and a gentleman; he could not have
been jealous of him, or have intentionally abstained from imparting to him
his own virtue. Did you never hear that he made his son Cleophantus a
famous horseman; and had him taught to stand upright on horseback and hurl
a javelin, and to do many other marvellous things; and in anything which
could be learned from a master he was well trained? Have you not heard
from our elders of him?
ANYTUS: I have.
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Louis Lambert by Honore de Balzac: "And with what word can I conclude when I cease writing to you,
and yet do not part from you? What can /farewell/ mean, unless in
death? But is death a farewell? Would not my spirit be then more
closely one with yours? Ah! my first and last thought; formerly I
offered you my heart and life on my knees; now what fresh blossoms
of feelings can I discover in my soul that I have not already
given you? It would be a gift of a part of what is wholly yours.
"Are you my future? How deeply I regret the past! I would I could
have back all the years that are ours no more, and give them to
you to reign over, as you do over my present life. What indeed was
that time when I knew you not? It would be a void but that I was
Louis Lambert |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from United States Declaration of Independence: acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them,
as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America,
in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of
the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name,
and by the Authority of the good People of these Colonies,
solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are,
and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States;
that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown,
and that all political connection between them and the State
of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved;
United States Declaration of Independence |
