| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Beyond Good and Evil by Friedrich Nietzsche: all seriousness, it is not at all improbable that precisely this
is "nature" and "natural"--and not laisser-aller! Every artist
knows how different from the state of letting himself go, is his
"most natural" condition, the free arranging, locating,
disposing, and constructing in the moments of "inspiration"--and
how strictly and delicately he then obeys a thousand laws, which,
by their very rigidness and precision, defy all formulation by
means of ideas (even the most stable idea has, in comparison
therewith, something floating, manifold, and ambiguous in it).
The essential thing "in heaven and in earth" is, apparently (to
repeat it once more), that there should be long OBEDIENCE in the
Beyond Good and Evil |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Alcibiades I by Plato: ALCIBIADES I
by
Plato (see Appendix I above)
Translated by Benjamin Jowett
INTRODUCTION.
The First Alcibiades is a conversation between Socrates and Alcibiades.
Socrates is represented in the character which he attributes to himself in
the Apology of a know-nothing who detects the conceit of knowledge in
others. The two have met already in the Protagoras and in the Symposium;
in the latter dialogue, as in this, the relation between them is that of a
lover and his beloved. But the narrative of their loves is told
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Alcibiades I by Plato: would least like to be deprived of them?
ALCIBIADES: Certainly.
SOCRATES: What would you say of courage? At what price would you be
willing to be deprived of courage?
ALCIBIADES: I would rather die than be a coward.
SOCRATES: Then you think that cowardice is the worst of evils?
ALCIBIADES: I do.
SOCRATES: As bad as death, I suppose?
ALCIBIADES: Yes.
SOCRATES: And life and courage are the extreme opposites of death and
cowardice?
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