| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Meno by Plato: SOCRATES: Here, then, there are four equal spaces?
BOY: Yes.
SOCRATES: And how many times larger is this space than this other?
BOY: Four times.
SOCRATES: But it ought to have been twice only, as you will remember.
BOY: True.
SOCRATES: And does not this line, reaching from corner to corner, bisect
each of these spaces?
BOY: Yes.
SOCRATES: And are there not here four equal lines which contain this
space?
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Middlemarch by George Eliot: it was a continually repeated shock, disturbing Lydgate's esteem,
that the Vicar should obviously play for the sake of money,
liking the play indeed, but evidently liking some end which it served.
Mr. Farebrother contended on theory for the desirability of all games,
and said that Englishmen's wit was stagnant for want of them;
but Lydgate felt certain that he would have played very much less
but for the money. There was a billiard-room at the Green Dragon,
which some anxious mothers and wives regarded as the chief temptation
in Middlemarch. The Vicar was a first-rate billiard-player, and
though he did not frequent the Green Dragon, there were reports
that he had sometimes been there in the daytime and had won money.
 Middlemarch |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Smalcald Articles by Dr. Martin Luther: purgatory, the monastic life, one's own works and [fictitious]
divine worship (for this is the very Papacy [upon each of
which the Papacy is altogether founded and is standing]), and
condemns, murders and tortures all Christians who do not exalt
and honor these abominations [of the Pope] above all things.
Therefore, just as little as we can worship the devil himself
as Lord and God, we can endure his apostle, the Pope, or
Antichrist, in his rule as head or lord. For to lie and to
kill, and to destroy body and soul eternally, that is wherein
his papal government really consists, as I have very clearly
shown in many books.
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