| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Golden Sayings of Epictetus by Epictetus: hand to strike you. It is a practice of which I was myself a warm
admirer until such experiences as these befell me.
LXV
When a youth was giving himself airs in the Theatre and
saying, "I am wise, for I have conversed with many wise men,"
Epictetus replied, "I too have conversed with many rich men, yet
I am not rich!"
LXVI
We see that a carpenter becomes a carpenter by learning
certain things: that a pilot, by learning certain things, becomes
a pilot. Possibly also in the present case the mere desire to be
The Golden Sayings of Epictetus |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne: on the white plain behind, red trails were visible. The last Sioux
were disappearing in the south, along the banks of Republican River.
Mr. Fogg, with folded arms, remained motionless. He had a serious
decision to make. Aouda, standing near him, looked at him without speaking,
and he understood her look. If his servant was a prisoner, ought he not
to risk everything to rescue him from the Indians? "I will find him,
living or dead," said he quietly to Aouda.
"Ah, Mr.--Mr. Fogg!" cried she, clasping his hands
and covering them with tears.
"Living," added Mr. Fogg, "if we do not lose a moment."
Phileas Fogg, by this resolution, inevitably sacrificed himself;
Around the World in 80 Days |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Madam How and Lady Why by Charles Kingsley: chalk-cart," or only a mouse, or only a dead leaf. Chalk-carts,
like mice, and dead leaves, and most other matters in the universe
are very curious and odd things in the eyes of wise and reasonable
people. Whenever I hear young men saying "only" this and "only"
that, I begin to suspect them of belonging, not to the noble army
of sages--much less to the most noble army of martyrs,--but to the
ignoble army of noodles, who think nothing interesting or
important but dinners, and balls, and races, and back-biting their
neighbours; and I should be sorry to see you enlisting in that
regiment when you grow up. But think--are not chalk-carts very
odd and curious things? I think they are. To my mind, it is a
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