| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Art of War by Sun Tzu: them nothing when the situation is gloomy.
58. Place your army in deadly peril, and it will survive;
plunge it into desperate straits, and it will come off in safety.
[These words of Sun Tzu were once quoted by Han Hsin in
explanation of the tactics he employed in one of his most
brilliant battles, already alluded to on p. 28. In 204 B.C., he
was sent against the army of Chao, and halted ten miles from the
mouth of the Ching-hsing pass, where the enemy had mustered in
full force. Here, at midnight, he detached a body of 2000 light
cavalry, every man of which was furnished with a red flag. Their
instructions were to make their way through narrow defiles and
The Art of War |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Atheist's Mass by Honore de Balzac: "Bourgeat, my second father, died in my arms," Desplein went on,
after a pause, visibly moved. "He left me everything he possessed
by a will he had had made by a public scrivener, dating from the
year when we had gone to live in the Cour de Rohan.
"This man's faith was perfect; he loved the Holy Virgin as he
might have loved his wife. He was an ardent Catholic, but never
said a word to me about my want of religion. When he was dying he
entreated me to spare no expense that he might have every
possible benefit of clergy. I had a mass said for him every day.
Often, in the night, he would tell me of his fears as to his
future fate; he feared his life had not been saintly enough. Poor
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Ruling Passion by Henry van Dyke: the role of a hero of interminable strife,--must have seemed to him
altogether mysterious and somewhat absurd. But his part was fixed
by the black patch. It gave him an aspect so truculent and
forbidding that all the elements of warfare gathered around him as
hornets around a sugar barrel, and his appearance in public was like
the raising of a flag for battle.
"You see that Pichou," said MacIntosh, the Hudson's Bay agent at
Mingan, "you see yon big black-eye deevil? The savages call him
Pichou because he's ugly as a lynx--'LAID COMME UN PICHOU.' Best
sledge-dog and the gurliest tyke on the North Shore. Only two years
old and he can lead a team already. But, man, he's just daft for
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