| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Sons of the Soil by Honore de Balzac: problem of public welfare and future security which the law seeks to
solve; but throughout the rest of France nothing is comprehended
beyond immediate gratification; people rebel against all that lessens
it. Therefore in nearly one half of France we find a power of inertia
which defeats all legal action, both municipal and governmental. This
resistance, be it understood, does not affect the essential things of
public polity. The collection of taxes, recruiting, punishment of
great crimes, as a general thing do systematically go on; but outside
of such recognized necessities, all legislative decrees which affect
customs, morals, private interests, and certain abuses, are a dead
letter, owing to the sullen opposition of the people. At the very
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Iron Puddler by James J. Davis: convention in Denver.
At the sight of these men in their Pullmans, my friend the
communist first turned pale, then green, then red. His eyes
narrowed and blazed like those of a madman. He stood up on his
porch, clenched his fists and launched into the most violent fit
of cursing I ever heard. The sight of those holiday-makers had
turned him into a demon. He thought they were capitalists. Here
was the hated tribe of rich men, the idle classes, all dressed up
with flags flying, riding across the country on a jamboree.
"The blood-sucking parasites! The bleareyed barnacles!" yelled
Comrade Bannerman. He shook his fists at the plutocrats and
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Golden Sayings of Epictetus by Epictetus: when asked one's country, to answer, "I am an Athenian or a
Corinthian," but "I am a citizen of the world."
XVI
He that hath grasped the administration of the World, who
hath learned that this Community, which consists of God and men,
is the foremost and mightiest and most comprehensive of all:--
that from God have descended the germs of life, not to my father
only and father's father, but to all things that are born and
grow upon the earth, and in an especial manner to those endowed
with Reason (for those only are by their nature fitted to hold
communion with God, being by means of Reason conjoined with Him)
The Golden Sayings of Epictetus |
