| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Reason Discourse by Rene Descartes: nothing, it was equally impossible that I could hold it from myself:
accordingly, it but remained that it had been placed in me by a nature
which was in reality more perfect than mine, and which even possessed
within itself all the perfections of which I could form any idea; that is
to say, in a single word, which was God. And to this I added that, since I
knew some perfections which I did not possess, I was not the only being in
existence (I will here, with your permission, freely use the terms of the
schools); but, on the contrary, that there was of necessity some other
more perfect Being upon whom I was dependent, and from whom I had received
all that I possessed; for if I had existed alone, and independently of
every other being, so as to have had from myself all the perfection,
Reason Discourse |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Second Inaugural Address by Abraham Lincoln: fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible, and pray
to the same God; and each invokes his aid against the other.
It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's
assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces;
but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both
could not be answered--that of neither has been answered fully.
The Almighty has his own purposes. "Woe unto the world because
of offenses! for it must needs be that offenses come; but woe
to that man by whom the offense cometh." If we shall suppose
that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the
providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued
Second Inaugural Address |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A House of Pomegranates by Oscar Wilde: together. Their faces were pinched with famine, and their thin
hands shook and trembled. Some haggard women were seated at a
table sewing. A horrible odour filled the place. The air was foul
and heavy, and the walls dripped and streamed with damp.
The young King went over to one of the weavers, and stood by him
and watched him.
And the weaver looked at him angrily, and said, 'Why art thou
watching me? Art thou a spy set on us by our master?'
'Who is thy master?' asked the young King.
'Our master!' cried the weaver, bitterly. 'He is a man like
myself. Indeed, there is but this difference between us - that he
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