| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Captain Stormfield by Mark Twain: and the kind you hanker after; no more pain, no more suffering - "
"Oh, hold on; there's plenty of pain here - but it don't kill.
There's plenty of suffering here, but it don't last. You see,
happiness ain't a THING IN ITSELF - it's only a CONTRAST with
something that ain't pleasant. That's all it is. There ain't a
thing you can mention that is happiness in its own self - it's only
so by contrast with the other thing. And so, as soon as the
novelty is over and the force of the contrast dulled, it ain't
happiness any longer, and you have to get something fresh. Well,
there's plenty of pain and suffering in heaven - consequently
there's plenty of contrasts, and just no end of happiness."
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Alcibiades I by Plato: the reason?
ALCIBIADES: It is.
SOCRATES: Then about what concerns of theirs will you advise them?
ALCIBIADES: About war, Socrates, or about peace, or about any other
concerns of the state.
SOCRATES: You mean, when they deliberate with whom they ought to make
peace, and with whom they ought to go to war, and in what manner?
ALCIBIADES: Yes.
SOCRATES: And they ought to go to war with those against whom it is better
to go to war?
ALCIBIADES: Yes.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Egmont by Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe: privacy of our homes, before an expressly appointed tribunal.
Jetter. Let us go home.
Carpenter. And the obedient are promised that they shall suffer no injury,
either in person or estate.
Jetter. How gracious!---I felt ill at ease the moment the duke entered the
town. Since then, it has seemed to me, as though the heavens were covered
with black crape, which hangs so low, that one must stoop down to avoid
knocking one's head against it.
Carpenter. And how do you like his soldiers? They are a different sort of
crabs from those we have been used to.
Jetter. Faugh! It gives one the cramp at one's heart to see such a troop
Egmont |
