| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Prince by Nicolo Machiavelli: Machiavelli was the accredited agent of the Florentine Republic to
Cesare Borgia (1478-1507) during the transactions which led up to
the assassinations of the Orsini and Vitelli at Sinigalia, and
along with his letters to his chiefs in Florence he has left an
account, written ten years before "The Prince," of the proceedings
of the duke in his "Descritione del modo tenuto dal duca Valentino
nello ammazzare Vitellozzo Vitelli," etc., a translation of which
is appended to the present work.
Because, as is stated above, he who has not first laid his foundations
may be able with great ability to lay them afterwards, but they will
be laid with trouble to the architect and danger to the building. If,
The Prince |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Beyond Good and Evil by Friedrich Nietzsche: 250. What Europe owes to the Jews?--Many things, good and bad,
and above all one thing of the nature both of the best and the
worst: the grand style in morality, the fearfulness and majesty
of infinite demands, of infinite significations, the whole
Romanticism and sublimity of moral questionableness--and
consequently just the most attractive, ensnaring, and exquisite
element in those iridescences and allurements to life, in the
aftersheen of which the sky of our European culture, its evening
sky, now glows--perhaps glows out. For this, we artists among the
spectators and philosophers, are--grateful to the Jews.
251. It must be taken into the bargain, if various clouds and
Beyond Good and Evil |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Man of Business by Honore de Balzac: felted covering, moulded to the top of the wearer's cranium, appeared
an elderly profile, half-official, half-soldierly, with a comical
admixture of arrogance,--altogether something like caricatures of the
/Constitutionnel/. The sometime official finding that age, and hair-
powder, and the conformation of his spine made it impossible to read a
word without spectacles, sat displaying a very creditable expanse of
chest with all the pride of an old man with a mistress. Like old
General Montcornet, that pillar of the Vaudeville, he wore earrings.
Denisart was partial to blue; his roomy trousers and well-worn
greatcoat were both of blue cloth.
" 'How long is it since that old fogy came here?' inquired Maxime,
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