| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Golden Sayings of Epictetus by Epictetus: CLIII
But what says Socrates?--"One man finds pleasure in
improving his land, another his horses. My pleasure lies in
seeing that I myself grow better day by day."
CLIV
The dress is suited to the craft; the craftsman takes his
name from the craft, not from the dress. For this reason
Euphrates was right in saying, "I long endeavoured to conceal my
following the philosophic life; and this profited me much. In the
first place, I knew that what I did aright, I did not for the
sake of lookers-on, but for my own. I ate aright--unto myself; I
The Golden Sayings of Epictetus |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Lair of the White Worm by Bram Stoker: "The thick black hair, growing low down on the neck, told of vast
physical strength and endurance. But the most remarkable
characteristic is the eyes. Black, piercing, almost unendurable,
they seem to contain in themselves a remarkable will power which
there is no gainsaying. It is a power that is partly racial and
partly individual: a power impregnated with some mysterious
quality, partly hypnotic, partly mesmeric, which seems to take away
from eyes that meet them all power of resistance--nay, all power of
wishing to resist. With eyes like those, set in that all-commanding
face, one would need to be strong indeed to think of resisting the
inflexible will that lay behind.
Lair of the White Worm |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Letters of Two Brides by Honore de Balzac: of my children. But the calling of a mother, if taxing, has so many
compensating joys! To see a child leave its play and run to hug one,
out of the fulness of its heart, what could be sweeter?
Then it is only in being constantly with them that one can study their
characters. It is the duty of a mother, and one which she can depute
to no hired teacher, to decipher the tastes, temper, and natural
aptitudes of her children from their infancy. All home-bred children
are distinguished by ease of manner and tact, two acquired qualities
which may go far to supply the lack of natural ability, whereas no
natural ability can atone for the loss of this early training. I have
already learned to discriminate this difference of tone in the men
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