| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from United States Declaration of Independence: one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected
them with another, and to assume, among the Powers of the earth,
the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and
of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions
of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which
impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,
that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,
that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.
That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men,
deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,
United States Declaration of Independence |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Protagoras by Plato: For example: (1) one of the noblest statements to be found in antiquity
about the preventive nature of punishment is put into his mouth; (2) he is
clearly right also in maintaining that virtue can be taught (which Socrates
himself, at the end of the Dialogue, is disposed to concede); and also (3)
in his explanation of the phenomenon that good fathers have bad sons; (4)
he is right also in observing that the virtues are not like the arts, gifts
or attainments of special individuals, but the common property of all:
this, which in all ages has been the strength and weakness of ethics and
politics, is deeply seated in human nature; (5) there is a sort of half-
truth in the notion that all civilized men are teachers of virtue; and more
than a half-truth (6) in ascribing to man, who in his outward conditions is
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Deputy of Arcis by Honore de Balzac: They are both, I think, acquaintances of yours, but, at any rate, I am
certain of your intimacy with Joseph Bridau, our great painter, who
shared in the talk, for I well remember that he and Daniel d'Arthez
were the witnesses of your marriage.
"The first appearance of Dorlange in art," Joseph Bridau was saying,
when I joined them, "was fine; the makings of a master were already so
apparent in the work he did for his examinations that the Academy,
under pressure of opinion, decided to crown him--though he laughed a
good deal at its programme."
"True," said Bixiou, "and that 'Pandora' he exhibited in 1837, after
his return from Rome, is also a very remarkable figure. But as she won
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