| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from 1984 by George Orwell: to adjust themselves to changing circumstances, and were overthrown; or
they became liberal and cowardly, made concessions when they should have
used force, and once again were overthrown. They fell, that is to say,
either through consciousness or through unconsciousness. It is the
achievement of the Party to have produced a system of thought in which
both conditions can exist simultaneously. And upon no other intellectual
basis could the dominion of the Party be made permanent. If one is to rule,
and to continue ruling, one must be able to dislocate the sense of reality.
For the secret of rulership is to combine a belief in one's own
infallibility with the Power to learn from past mistakes.
It need hardly be said that the subtlest practitioners of DOUBLETHINK are
1984 |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Firm of Nucingen by Honore de Balzac: women in it, and at these times they thought him very clever. In
short, judge of his absorption; Joby, his horses and carriages, became
secondary interests in his life. He was never happy except in the
depths of a snug settee opposite the Baroness, by the dark-green
porphyry chimney-piece, watching Isaure, taking tea, and chatting with
the little circle of friends that dropped in every evening between
eleven and twelve in the Rue Joubert. You could play bouillotte there
safely. (I always won.) Isaure sat with one little foot thrust out in
its black satin shoe; Godefroid would gaze and gaze, and stay till
every one else was gone, and say, 'Give me your shoe!' and Isaure
would put her little foot on a chair and take it off and give it to
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Footnote to History by Robert Louis Stevenson: very fine of their sort: yet more are in the building; and in the
midst a tall house of assembly, by far the greatest Samoan
structure now in these islands, stands about half finished and
already makes a figure in the landscape. No bustle is to be
observed, but the work accomplished testifies to a still activity.
The centre-piece of all is the high chief himself, Malietoa-
Tuiatua-Tuiaana Mataafa, king - or not king - or king-claimant - of
Samoa. All goes to him, all comes from him. Native deputations
bring him gifts and are feasted in return. White travellers, to
their indescribable irritation, are (on his approach) waved from
his path by his armed guards. He summons his dancers by the note
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