| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Alcibiades I by Plato: SOCRATES: Did not I ask, and you answer the question?
ALCIBIADES: Yes.
SOCRATES: Then who is speaking? I who put the question, or you who answer
me?
ALCIBIADES: I am.
SOCRATES: Or suppose that I ask and you tell me the letters which make up
the name Socrates, which of us is the speaker?
ALCIBIADES: I am.
SOCRATES: Now let us put the case generally: whenever there is a question
and answer, who is the speaker,--the questioner or the answerer?
ALCIBIADES: I should say, Socrates, that the answerer was the speaker.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Works of Samuel Johnson by Samuel Johnson: not yet remarked, how little attention his contemporaries
can spare from their own affairs, conceives
all eyes turned upon himself, and imagines every
one that approaches him to be an enemy or a
follower, an admirer or a spy. He therefore considers
his fame as involved in the event of every action.
Many of the virtues and vices of youth proceed
from this quick sense of reputation. This it is that
gives firmness and constancy, fidelity, and disinterestedness,
and it is this that kindles resentment for
slight injuries, and dictates all the principles of
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Confessio Amantis by John Gower: If that thee list to come and se,
A ladi ded for love of thee,
So as I schal myselve spille;
Whom, if it hadde be thi wille,
Thou mihtest save wel ynowh."
With that upon a grene bowh
A Ceinte of Selk, which sche ther hadde,
Sche knette, and so hireself sche ladde,
That sche aboute hire whyte swere
It dede, and hyng hirselven there. 860
Wherof the goddes were amoeved,
Confessio Amantis |
