| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A treatise on Good Works by Dr. Martin Luther: has to do with temporal and eternal possessions.
XV. A prince must also be very wise and not at all times
undertake to enforce his own will, although he may have the
authority and the very best cause. For it is a far nobler virtue
to endure wrong to one's authority than to risk property and
person, if it is advantageous to the subjects; since worldly
rights attach only to temporal goods.
Hence, it is a very foolish saying: I have a right to it,
therefore I will take it by storm and keep it, although all sorts
of misfortune may come to others thereby. So we read of the
Emperor Octavianus, that he did not wish to make war, however
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Perfect Wagnerite: A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring by George Bernard Shaw: ourselves before the cave of Fafnir, and there we find Alberic,
who can find nothing better to do with himself than to watch the
haunt of the dragon, and eat his heart out in vain longing for
the gold and the ring. The wretched Fafnir, once an honest giant,
can only make himself terrible enough to keep his gold by
remaining a venomous reptile. Why he should not become an honest
giant again and clear out of his cavern, leaving the gold and the
ring and the rest of it for anyone fool enough to take them at
such a price, is the first question that would occur to anyone
except a civilized man, who would be too accustomed to that sort
of mania to be at all surprised at it.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Lady Baltimore by Owen Wister: whole connection. He next alluded tragically but vaguely to misfortunes
which had totally deprived him of income. I could not precisely fix what
his inheritance had been; sometimes he spoke of cotton, but next it would
be rice, and he touched upon sugar more than once; but, whatever it was,
it had been vast and was gone. He told me that I could not imagine the
feelings of a father who possessed a jewel and no dowry to give her. "A
queen's estate should have been hers," he said. "But what! 'Who steals my
purse steals trash.'" And he sat up, nobly braced by the philosophic
thought. But he soon was shaking his head over his enfeebled health. Was
I aware that he had been the cause of postponing the young people's joy
twice? Twice had the doctors forbidden him to risk the emotions that
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