| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Bride of Lammermoor by Walter Scott: yourself and others. I would shield, were it in the power of
this withered hand, the Ashtons from you, and you from them, and
both from their own passions. You can have nothing--ought to
have nothing, in common with them. Begone from among them; and
if God has destined vengeance on the oppressor's house, do not
you be the instrument."
"I will think on what you have said, Alice," said
Ravenswood, more composedly. "I believe you mean truly and
faithfully by me, but you urge the freedom of an ancient domestic
somewhat too far. But farewell; and if Heaven afford me better
means, I will not fail to contribute to your comfort."
The Bride of Lammermoor |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Tanach: 2_Kings 18: 20 Sayest thou that a mere word of the lips is counsel and strength for the war? Now on whom dost thou trust, that thou hast rebelled against me?
2_Kings 18: 21 Now, behold, thou trustest upon the staff of this bruised reed, even upon Egypt; whereon if a man lean, it will go into his hand, and pierce it; so is Pharaoh king of Egypt unto all that trust on him.
2_Kings 18: 22 But if ye say unto me: We trust in the LORD our God; is not that He, whose high places and whose altars Hezekiah hath taken away, and hath said to Judah and to Jerusalem: Ye shall worship before this altar in Jerusalem?
2_Kings 18: 23 Now therefore, I pray thee, make a wager with my master the king of Assyria, and I will give thee two thousand horses, if thou be able on thy part to set riders upon them.
2_Kings 18: 24 How then canst thou turn away the face of one captain, even of the least of my masters servants? and yet thou puttest thy trust on Egypt for chariots and for horsemen!
2_Kings 18: 25 Am I now come up without the LORD against this place to destroy it? The LORD said unto me: Go up against this land, destroy it.'
2_Kings 18: 26 Then said Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, and Shebnah, and Joah, unto Rab-shakeh: 'Speak, I pray thee, to thy servants in the Aramean language; for we understand it; and speak not with us in the Jews' language, in the ears of the people that are on the wall.'
2_Kings 18: 27 But Rab-shakeh said unto them: 'Hath my master sent me to thy master, and to thee, to speak these words? hath he not sent me to the men that sit on the wall, to eat their own dung, an 
The Tanach |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Tao Teh King by Lao-tze: states) under heaven.
2. (To illustrate from) the case of all females:--the female always
overcomes the male by her stillness. Stillness may be considered (a
sort of) abasement.
3. Thus it is that a great state, by condescending to small states,
gains them for itself; and that small states, by abasing themselves to
a great state, win it over to them. In the one case the abasement
leads to gaining adherents, in the other case to procuring favour.
4. The great state only wishes to unite men together and nourish them;
a small state only wishes to be received by, and to serve, the other.
Each gets what it desires, but the great state must learn to abase
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