| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Gorgias by Plato: question is asked of you by them and by me; What is that which, as you say,
is the greatest good of man, and of which you are the creator? Answer us.
GORGIAS: That good, Socrates, which is truly the greatest, being that
which gives to men freedom in their own persons, and to individuals the
power of ruling over others in their several states.
SOCRATES: And what would you consider this to be?
GORGIAS: What is there greater than the word which persuades the judges in
the courts, or the senators in the council, or the citizens in the
assembly, or at any other political meeting?--if you have the power of
uttering this word, you will have the physician your slave, and the trainer
your slave, and the money-maker of whom you talk will be found to gather
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Adieu by Honore de Balzac: poured itself violently into the river like an avalanche. Not a cry
was heard; the only sound was like the dropping of monstrous stones
into the water. Then the Beresina was a mass of floating corpses.
The retrograde movement of those who now fell back into the plain to
escape the death before them was so violent, and their concussion
against those who were advancing from the rear so terrible, that
numbers were smothered or trampled to death. The Comte and Comtesse de
Vandieres owed their lives to their carriage, behind which Philippe
forced them, using it as a breastwork. As for the major and the
grenadier, they found their safety in their strength. They killed to
escape being killed.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Poems by T. S. Eliot: In the palms of both soiled hands.
IV
His soul stretched tight across the skies
That fade behind a city block,
Or trampled by insistent feet
At four and five and six o'clock;
And short square fingers stuffing pipes,
And evening newspapers, and eyes
Assured of certain certainties,
The conscience of a blackened street
Impatient to assume the world.
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