| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Art of War by Sun Tzu: about to take the field, in order that he might there elaborate
his plan of campaign.]
The general who loses a battle makes but few calculations
beforehand. Thus do many calculations lead to victory, and few
calculations to defeat: how much more no calculation at all! It
is by attention to this point that I can foresee who is likely to
win or lose.
[1] "Words on Wellington," by Sir. W. Fraser.
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II. WAGING WAR
[Ts`ao Kung has the note: "He who wishes to fight must
The Art of War |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Eve and David by Honore de Balzac: make it a charge on my portion, on my earnings----"
"Then has some one brought David into a court of law?" cried the
vinedresser, amazed to find that the gossip was really true. "See what
comes of knowing how to write your name! And how about my rent! Oh!
little girl, I must go to Angouleme at once and ask Cachan's advice,
and see that I am straight. You did right well to come over.
Forewarned is forearmed."
After two hours of argument Eve was fain to go, defeated by the
unanswerable dictum, "Women never understand business." She had come
with a faint hope, she went back again almost heartbroken, and reached
home just in time to receive notice of judgment; Sechard must pay
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Plutarch's Lives by A. H. Clough: ease to what he shall himself judge desirable. So that it becomes a
man's duty to pursue and make after the best and choicest of everything,
that he may not only employ his contemplation, but may also be
improved by it. For as that color is most suitable to the eye whose
freshness and pleasantness stimulates and strengthens the sight, so a
man ought to apply his intellectual perception to such objects as, with
the sense of delight, are apt to call it forth, and allure it to its
own proper good and advantage.
Such objects we find in the acts of virtue, which also produce in the
minds of mere readers about them, an emulation and eagerness that may
lead them on to imitation. In other things there does not immediately
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