| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Prince by Nicolo Machiavelli: he cannot stand alone, so that many honours may not make him desire
more, many riches make him wish for more, and that many cares may make
him dread chances. When, therefore, servants, and princes towards
servants, are thus disposed, they can trust each other, but when it is
otherwise, the end will always be disastrous for either one or the
other.
CHAPTER XXIII
HOW FLATTERERS SHOULD BE AVOIDED
I do not wish to leave out an important branch of this subject, for it
is a danger from which princes are with difficulty preserved, unless
they are very careful and discriminating. It is that of flatterers, of
The Prince |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Charmides by Plato: very essence of knowledge, and in this I agree with him who dedicated the
inscription, 'Know thyself!' at Delphi. That word, if I am not mistaken,
is put there as a sort of salutation which the god addresses to those who
enter the temple; as much as to say that the ordinary salutation of 'Hail!'
is not right, and that the exhortation 'Be temperate!' would be a far
better way of saluting one another. The notion of him who dedicated the
inscription was, as I believe, that the god speaks to those who enter his
temple, not as men speak; but, when a worshipper enters, the first word
which he hears is 'Be temperate!' This, however, like a prophet he
expresses in a sort of riddle, for 'Know thyself!' and 'Be temperate!' are
the same, as I maintain, and as the letters imply (Greek), and yet they may
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Sophist by Plato: The way to the West is the way also to the East; the north pole of the
magnet cannot be divided from the south pole; two minus signs make a plus
in Arithmetic and Algebra. Again, we may liken the successive layers of
thought to the deposits of geological strata which were once fluid and are
now solid, which were at one time uppermost in the series and are now
hidden in the earth; or to the successive rinds or barks of trees which
year by year pass inward; or to the ripple of water which appears and
reappears in an ever-widening circle. Or our attention may be drawn to
ideas which the moment we analyze them involve a contradiction, such as
'beginning' or 'becoming,' or to the opposite poles, as they are sometimes
termed, of necessity and freedom, of idea and fact. We may be told to
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