| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Beyond Good and Evil by Friedrich Nietzsche: one's enthusiasm with doubt, one feels even the good conscience
to be a danger, as if it were the self-concealment and lassitude
of a more refined uprightness; and above all, one espouses upon
principle the cause AGAINST "youth."--A decade later, and one
comprehends that all this was also still--youth!
32. Throughout the longest period of human history--one calls it
the prehistoric period--the value or non-value of an action was
inferred from its CONSEQUENCES; the action in itself was not
taken into consideration, any more than its origin; but pretty
much as in China at present, where the distinction or disgrace of
a child redounds to its parents, the retro-operating power of
Beyond Good and Evil |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe: The disappointment, sir,' says he to my gentleman, 'was yours,
and the good turn is mine, for if you had met at Stony-Stratford
I had not had the honour to marry you. Landlord, have you a
Common Prayer Book?'
I started as if I had been frightened. 'Lord, sir,' says I, 'what
do you mean? What, to marry in an inn, and at night too?'
'Madam,' says the minister, 'if you will have it be in the church,
you shall; but I assure you your marriage will be as firm here
as in the church; we are not tied by the canons to marry nowhere
but in the church; and if you will have it in the church, it
will be a public as a county fair; and as for the time of day, it
Moll Flanders |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Ion by Plato: SOCRATES: Well done; and I hope that you will do the same for us at the
Panathenaea.
ION: And I will, please heaven.
SOCRATES: I often envy the profession of a rhapsode, Ion; for you have
always to wear fine clothes, and to look as beautiful as you can is a part
of your art. Then, again, you are obliged to be continually in the company
of many good poets; and especially of Homer, who is the best and most
divine of them; and to understand him, and not merely learn his words by
rote, is a thing greatly to be envied. And no man can be a rhapsode who
does not understand the meaning of the poet. For the rhapsode ought to
interpret the mind of the poet to his hearers, but how can he interpret him
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