| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Of The Nature of Things by Lucretius: Who leave the sunshine, dying bit by bit,
Still must the soul as mortal be confessed;
Nor aught it matters whether to wrack it go,
Dispersed in the winds, or, gathered in a mass
From all its parts, sink down to brutish death,
Since more and more in every region sense
Fails the whole man, and less and less of life
In every region lingers.
And besides,
If soul immortal is, and winds its way
Into the body at the birth of man,
 Of The Nature of Things |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Unseen World and Other Essays by John Fiske: These great monarchs apparently neither understood nor relished
the republican theories of the Hollanders; though it is hardly
necessary for Mr. Motley to sneer at them quite so often because
they were not to an impossible degree in advance of their age.
The proclamation of a republic in the Netherlands marked of
itself the beginning of a new era,--an era when flourishing
communities of men were no longer to be bought and sold,
transferred and bequeathed like real estate and chattels, but
were to have and maintain the right of choosing with whom and
under whom they should transact their affairs. The interminable
negotiations for a truce, which fill nearly one third of Mr.
 The Unseen World and Other Essays |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Songs of Innocence and Experience by William Blake: And he laughing said to me:
'Pipe a song about a Lamb!'
So I piped with merry cheer.
'Piper, pipe that song again.'
So I piped: he wept to hear.
'Drop thy pipe, thy happy pipe;
Sing thy songs of happy cheer!'
So I sung the same again,
While he wept with joy to hear.
'Piper, sit thee down and write
In a book, that all may read.'
 Songs of Innocence and Experience |