| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Eryxias by Platonic Imitator: SOCRATES: And how would you answer another question? There are persons,
are there not, who teach music and grammar and other arts for pay, and thus
procure those things of which they stand in need?
ERYXIAS: There are.
SOCRATES: And these men by the arts which they profess, and in exchange
for them, obtain the necessities of life just as we do by means of gold and
silver?
ERYXIAS: True.
SOCRATES: Then if they procure by this means what they want for the
purposes of life, that art will be useful towards life? For do we not say
that silver is useful because it enables us to supply our bodily needs?
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from De Profundis by Oscar Wilde: have to do, if the brief remainder of my days is not to be maimed,
marred, and incomplete, is to absorb into my nature all that has
been done to me, to make it part of me, to accept it without
complaint, fear, or reluctance. The supreme vice is shallowness.
Whatever is realised is right.
When first I was put into prison some people advised me to try and
forget who I was. It was ruinous advice. It is only by realising
what I am that I have found comfort of any kind. Now I am advised
by others to try on my release to forget that I have ever been in a
prison at all. I know that would be equally fatal. It would mean
that I would always be haunted by an intolerable sense of disgrace,
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Purse by Honore de Balzac: At these words Adelaide raised her head, looked at her lover, and
her anxious eyes had now no hint of reproach.
"You must have thought us quite indifferent to any good or ill
that may befall you?" said the old lady.
"I was wrong," he replied. "Still, there are forms of pain which
we know not how to confide to any one, even to a friendship of
older date than that with which you honor me."
"The sincerity and strength of friendship are not to be measured
by time. I have seen old friends who had not a tear to bestow on
misfortune," said the Baroness, nodding sadly.
"But you--what ails you?" the young man asked Adelaide.
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