| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Republic by Plato: are not filled with true being, and their vessel is leaky (Gorgias). Their
pleasures are mere shadows of pleasure, mixed with pain, coloured and
intensified by contrast, and therefore intensely desired; and men go
fighting about them, as Stesichorus says that the Greeks fought about the
shadow of Helen at Troy, because they know not the truth.
The same may be said of the passionate element:--the desires of the
ambitious soul, as well as of the covetous, have an inferior satisfaction.
Only when under the guidance of reason do either of the other principles do
their own business or attain the pleasure which is natural to them. When
not attaining, they compel the other parts of the soul to pursue a shadow
of pleasure which is not theirs. And the more distant they are from
The Republic |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from United States Declaration of Independence: and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our
common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably
interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been
deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore,
acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them,
as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America,
in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of
the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name,
and by the Authority of the good People of these Colonies,
solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are,
United States Declaration of Independence |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Selected Writings of Guy De Maupassant by Guy De Maupassant: "What is it, cousin?"
"I do not like to tell you, and yet I must. I am in absolute want
of five thousand francs."
"What, you?"
"Yes, I, or rather my husband, who has asked me to procure them
for him."
I was so stupefied that I hesitated to answer. I asked myself
whether she had not really been making fun of me with Dr. Parent,
if it were not merely a very well-acted farce which had been got
up beforehand. On looking at her attentively, however, my doubts
disappeared. She was trembling with grief, so painful was this
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