| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Alcibiades I by Plato: on their pates; and they come with their barbarous lingo to flatter us and
not to rule us. To these, I say, you should look, and then you need not
trouble yourself about your own fitness to contend in such a noble arena:
there is no reason why you should either learn what has to be learned, or
practise what has to be practised, and only when thoroughly prepared enter
on a political career.
ALCIBIADES: There, I think, Socrates, that you are right; I do not
suppose, however, that the Spartan generals or the great king are really
different from anybody else.
SOCRATES: But, my dear friend, do consider what you are saying.
ALCIBIADES: What am I to consider?
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories by Mark Twain: To have simply skinned me alive and considered his duty at an end
would have seemed to him criminal leniency toward one so sinning.
He was a stern, unsmiling man, and hated all forms of precocity.
If I had said some of the things I have referred to, and said them in
his hearing, he would have destroyed me. He would, indeed. He would,
provided the opportunity remained with him. But it would not,
for I would have had judgment enough to take some strychnine first
and say my smart thing afterward. The fair record of my life has
been tarnished by just one pun. My father overheard that, and he
hunted me over four or five townships seeking to take my life.
If I had been full-grown, of course he would have been right;
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Hamlet by William Shakespeare: And let him for a paire of reechie kisses,
Or padling in your necke with his damn'd Fingers,
Make you to rauell all this matter out,
That I essentially am not in madnesse,
But made in craft. 'Twere good you let him know,
For who that's but a Queene, faire, sober, wise,
Would from a Paddocke, from a Bat, a Gibbe,
Such deere concernings hide, Who would do so,
No in despight of Sense and Secrecie,
Vnpegge the Basket on the houses top:
Let the Birds flye, and like the famous Ape
Hamlet |
