| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Beyond Good and Evil by Friedrich Nietzsche: and it may be just the depth of his tolerance and humanity which
prompts him to avoid the delicate trouble which tolerance itself
brings with it.--Every age has its own divine type of naivete,
for the discovery of which other ages may envy it: and how much
naivete--adorable, childlike, and boundlessly foolish naivete is
involved in this belief of the scholar in his superiority, in the
good conscience of his tolerance, in the unsuspecting, simple
certainty with which his instinct treats the religious man as a
lower and less valuable type, beyond, before, and ABOVE which he
himself has developed--he, the little arrogant dwarf and mob-man,
the sedulously alert, head-and-hand drudge of "ideas," of "modern
Beyond Good and Evil |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from An Episode Under the Terror by Honore de Balzac: own, he began again gravely:
"Remember, my son, that it is not enough to have taken no active part
in the great crime; that fact does not absolve you. The men who might
have defended the King and left their swords in their scabbards, will
have a very heavy account to render to the King of Heaven--Ah! yes,"
he added, with an eloquent shake of the head, "heavy indeed!--for by
doing nothing they became accomplices in the awful wickedness----"
"But do you think that an indirect participation will be punished?"
the stranger asked with a bewildered look. "There is the private
soldier commanded to fall into line--is he actually responsible?"
The priest hesitated. The stranger was glad; he had put the Royalist
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen: for to remove far from that beloved spot was impossible.
But she could hear of no situation that at once answered
her notions of comfort and ease, and suited the prudence
of her eldest daughter, whose steadier judgment rejected
several houses as too large for their income, which her
mother would have approved.
Mrs. Dashwood had been informed by her husband of the
solemn promise on the part of his son in their favour,
which gave comfort to his last earthly reflections.
She doubted the sincerity of this assurance no more than he
had doubted it himself, and she thought of it for her daughters'
Sense and Sensibility |
