| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Alcibiades II by Platonic Imitator: SOCRATES: But ought we not then, think you, either to fancy that we know
or really to know, what we confidently propose to do or say?
ALCIBIADES: Yes.
SOCRATES: And if a person does that which he knows or supposes that he
knows, and the result is beneficial, he will act advantageously both for
himself and for the state?
ALCIBIADES: True.
SOCRATES: And if he do the contrary, both he and the state will suffer?
ALCIBIADES: Yes.
SOCRATES: Well, and are you of the same mind, as before?
ALCIBIADES: I am.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Personal Record by Joseph Conrad: have been unfavourably impressed by something in my appearance.
His old, thin hands loosely clasped resting on his crossed legs,
he began by an elementary question, in a mild voice, and went on,
went on. . . . It lasted for hours, for hours. Had I been a
strange microbe with potentialities of deadly mischief to the
Merchant Service I could not have been submitted to a more
microscopic examination. Greatly reassured by his apparent
benevolence, I had been at first very alert in my answers. But
at length the feeling of my brain getting addled crept upon me.
And still the passionless process went on, with a sense of untold
ages having been spent already on mere preliminaries. Then I got
A Personal Record |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Selected Writings of Guy De Maupassant by Guy De Maupassant: because the place closes up. And it is this latter that embitters
me more than anything. For the last ten years, I have passed
six-tenths of my time on this bench, in my corner; and the other
four-tenths in my bed, never changing. I talk sometimes with the
habitues."
"But on arriving in Paris what did you do at first?"
"I paid my devoirs to the Cafe de Medicis."
"What next?"
"Next? I crossed the water and came here."
"Why did you take even that trouble?"
"What do you mean? One cannot remain all one's life in the Latin
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