| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Gorgias by Plato: say that they are good when they are just, and evil when they are unjust.
POLUS: You are hard of refutation, Socrates, but might not a child refute
that statement?
SOCRATES: Then I shall be very grateful to the child, and equally grateful
to you if you will refute me and deliver me from my foolishness. And I
hope that refute me you will, and not weary of doing good to a friend.
POLUS: Yes, Socrates, and I need not go far or appeal to antiquity; events
which happened only a few days ago are enough to refute you, and to prove
that many men who do wrong are happy.
SOCRATES: What events?
POLUS: You see, I presume, that Archelaus the son of Perdiccas is now the
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce: theologians with a controversy.
PRECEDENT, n. In Law, a previous decision, rule or practice which, in
the absence of a definite statute, has whatever force and authority a
Judge may choose to give it, thereby greatly simplifying his task of
doing as he pleases. As there are precedents for everything, he has
only to ignore those that make against his interest and accentuate
those in the line of his desire. Invention of the precedent elevates
the trial-at-law from the low estate of a fortuitous ordeal to the
noble attitude of a dirigible arbitrament.
PRECIPITATE, adj. Anteprandial.
Precipitate in all, this sinner
The Devil's Dictionary |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Second Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling: a Sunnyasi, or holy man, was considered nothing extraordinary.
He had been, as the Old Law recommends, twenty years a youth,
twenty years a fighter,--though he had never carried a weapon in
his life,--and twenty years head of a household. He had used his
wealth and his power for what he knew both to be worth; he had
taken honour when it came his way; he had seen men and cities
far and near, and men and cities had stood up and honoured him.
Now he would let those things go, as a man drops the cloak he no
longer needs.
Behind him, as he walked through the city gates, an antelope
skin and brass-handled crutch under his arm, and a begging-bowl
The Second Jungle Book |
