| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Tales of Unrest by Joseph Conrad: round. Then he also began to run laboriously on his swollen legs. He
ran as quickly as he could, grasping the revolver, and unable yet to
understand what was happening to him. He saw in succession Makola's
house, the store, the river, the ravine, and the low bushes; and he
saw all those things again as he ran for the second time round the
house. Then again they flashed past him. That morning he could not
have walked a yard without a groan.
And now he ran. He ran fast enough to keep out of sight of the other
man.
Then as, weak and desperate, he thought, "Before I finish the next
round I shall die," he heard the other man stumble heavily, then stop.
Tales of Unrest |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Alcibiades I by Plato: you must establish over them, if you mean to accomplish any noble action
really worthy of yourself and of the state.
ALCIBIADES: That would certainly be my aim.
SOCRATES: Verily, then, you have good reason to be satisfied, if you are
better than the soldiers; and you need not, when you are their superior and
have your thoughts and actions fixed upon them, look away to the generals
of the enemy.
ALCIBIADES: Of whom are you speaking, Socrates?
SOCRATES: Why, you surely know that our city goes to war now and then with
the Lacedaemonians and with the great king?
ALCIBIADES: True enough.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Statesman by Plato: by these characteristics of the one, the few, or the many, of poverty or
wealth, of voluntary or compulsory submission, of written law or the
absence of law, can be a right one?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Why not?
STRANGER: Reflect; and follow me.
YOUNG SOCRATES: In what direction?
STRANGER: Shall we abide by what we said at first, or shall we retract our
words?
YOUNG SOCRATES: To what do you refer?
STRANGER: If I am not mistaken, we said that royal power was a science?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes.
Statesman |
