| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Prince by Nicolo Machiavelli: always help to ruin him.
Therefore, one who becomes a prince through the favour of the people
ought to keep them friendly, and this he can easily do seeing they
only ask not to be oppressed by him. But one who, in opposition to the
people, becomes a prince by the favour of the nobles, ought, above
everything, to seek to win the people over to himself, and this he may
easily do if he takes them under his protection. Because men, when
they receive good from him of whom they were expecting evil, are bound
more closely to their benefactor; thus the people quickly become more
devoted to him than if he had been raised to the principality by their
favours; and the prince can win their affections in many ways, but as
The Prince |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Footnote to History by Robert Louis Stevenson: song of consuls.
CAPTAIN BRANDEIS. The new actor was Brandeis, a Bavarian captain
of artillery, of a romantic and adventurous character. He had
served with credit in war; but soon wearied of garrison life,
resigned his battery, came to the States, found employment as a
civil engineer, visited Cuba, took a sub-contract on the Panama
canal, caught the fever, and came (for the sake of the sea voyage)
to Australia. He had that natural love for the tropics which lies
so often latent in persons of a northern birth; difficulty and
danger attracted him; and when he was picked out for secret duty,
to be the hand of Germany in Samoa, there is no doubt but he
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Vicar of Tours by Honore de Balzac: glanced at that bookcase, the poor abbe knew that the future vicar-
general felt certain of possessing the spoils of those he had so
bitterly hated,--Chapeloud as an enemy, and Birotteau, in and through
whom Chapeloud still thwarted him. Ideas rose in the heart of the poor
man at the sight, and plunged him into a sort of vision. He stood
motionless, as though fascinated by Troubert's eyes which fixed
themselves upon him.
"I do not suppose, monsieur," said Birotteau at last, "that you intend
to deprive me of the things that belong to me. Mademoiselle may have
been impatient to give you better lodgings, but she ought to have been
sufficiently just to give me time to pack my books and remove my
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