| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Lysis by Plato: it. Thus we see that there are many causes which impair the happiness of
friends.
We may expect a friendship almost divine, such as philosophers have
sometimes dreamed of: we find what is human. The good of it is
necessarily limited; it does not take the place of marriage; it affords
rather a solace than an arm of support. It had better not be based on
pecuniary obligations; these more often mar than make a friendship. It is
most likely to be permanent when the two friends are equal and independent,
or when they are engaged together in some common work or have some public
interest in common. It exists among the bad or inferior sort of men almost
as much as among the good; the bad and good, and 'the neither bad nor
Lysis |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum: looked at Dorothy again.
"Why should I do this for you?" asked Oz.
"Because you are strong and I am weak; because you are a Great
Wizard and I am only a little girl."
"But you were strong enough to kill the Wicked Witch of the East,"
said Oz.
"That just happened," returned Dorothy simply; "I could not help it."
"Well," said the Head, "I will give you my answer. You have no
right to expect me to send you back to Kansas unless you do something
for me in return. In this country everyone must pay for everything
he gets. If you wish me to use my magic power to send you home again
The Wizard of Oz |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Plutarch's Lives by A. H. Clough: money, prevailed with him to withdraw the Peloponnesians out of Attica.
When the army had retired and dispersed into their several states, the
Lacedaemonians in anger fined their king in so large a sum of money,
that, unable to pay it, he quitted Lacedaemon; while Cleandrides fled,
and had sentence of death passed upon him in his absence. This was the
father of Gylippus, who overpowered the Athenians in Sicily. And it
seems that this covetousness was an hereditary disease transmitted from
father to son; for Gylippus also afterwards was caught in foul
practices, and expelled from Sparta for it. But this we have told at
large in the account of Lysander.
When Pericles, in giving up his accounts of this expedition, stated a
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