| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Alcibiades II by Platonic Imitator: SOCRATES: Are you going, Alcibiades, to offer prayer to Zeus?
ALCIBIADES: Yes, Socrates, I am.
SOCRATES: you seem to be troubled and to cast your eyes on the ground, as
though you were thinking about something.
ALCIBIADES: Of what do you suppose that I am thinking?
SOCRATES: Of the greatest of all things, as I believe. Tell me, do you
not suppose that the Gods sometimes partly grant and partly reject the
requests which we make in public and private, and favour some persons and
not others?
ALCIBIADES: Certainly.
SOCRATES: Do you not imagine, then, that a man ought to be very careful,
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne: hands together--there is a worth in thy honest ignorance, brother Toby--
'twere almost a pity to exchange it for a knowledge.--But I'll tell thee.--
To understand what time is aright, without which we never can comprehend
infinity, insomuch as one is a portion of the other--we ought seriously to
sit down and consider what idea it is we have of duration, so as to give a
satisfactory account how we came by it.--What is that to any body? quoth my
uncle Toby. (Vide Locke.) For if you will turn your eyes inwards upon
your mind, continued my father, and observe attentively, you will perceive,
brother, that whilst you and I are talking together, and thinking, and
smoking our pipes, or whilst we receive successively ideas in our minds, we
know that we do exist, and so we estimate the existence, or the
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Roads of Destiny by O. Henry: paid the storekeeper the price he asked.
"'Come to my hotel for the night,' I said to Kearny. 'We sail
to-morrow at noon.'
"He agreed; but on the sidewalk he fell to cursing again in the dull
monotonous way that he had done when I pulled him out of the coal
cellar.
"'Captain,' said he, 'before we go any further, it's no more than fair
to tell you that I'm known from Baffin's Bay to Terra del Fuego as
"Bad-Luck" Kearny. And I'm It. Everything I get into goes up in the
air except a balloon. Every bet I ever made I lost except when I
coppered it. Every boat I ever sailed on sank except the submarines.
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