| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Charmides by Plato: temple, not as men speak; but, when a worshipper enters, the first word
which he hears is 'Be temperate!' This, however, like a prophet he
expresses in a sort of riddle, for 'Know thyself!' and 'Be temperate!' are
the same, as I maintain, and as the letters imply (Greek), and yet they may
be easily misunderstood; and succeeding sages who added 'Never too much,'
or, 'Give a pledge, and evil is nigh at hand,' would appear to have so
misunderstood them; for they imagined that 'Know thyself!' was a piece of
advice which the god gave, and not his salutation of the worshippers at
their first coming in; and they dedicated their own inscription under the
idea that they too would give equally useful pieces of advice. Shall I
tell you, Socrates, why I say all this? My object is to leave the previous
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce: bilious with. The sentiments and emotions which every literary
anatomist now knows to haunt the heart were anciently believed to
infest the liver; and even Gascoygne, speaking of the emotional side
of human nature, calls it "our hepaticall parte." It was at one time
considered the seat of life; hence its name -- liver, the thing we
live with. The liver is heaven's best gift to the goose; without it
that bird would be unable to supply us with the Strasbourg _pate_.
LL.D. Letters indicating the degree _Legumptionorum Doctor_, one
learned in laws, gifted with legal gumption. Some suspicion is cast
upon this derivation by the fact that the title was formerly _LL.d._,
and conferred only upon gentlemen distinguished for their wealth. At
The Devil's Dictionary |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Sons of the Soil by Honore de Balzac: question is, how to do it without danger and frighten those Arminacs
so that they'll be driven out of the place."
"Which one shall we kill?" asked Laroche.
"Michaud," said Courtecuisse. "Vaudoyer is right, he's perfectly
right. You'll see that when a keeper is sent to the shades there won't
be one of them willing to stay even in broad daylight to watch us. Now
they're there night and day,--demons!"
"Wherever one goes," said old Mother Tonsard,--who was seventy-eight
years old, and presented a parchment face honey-combed with the small-
pox, lighted by a pair of green eyes, and framed with dirty-white
hair, which escaped in strands from a red handkerchief,--"wherever one
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