| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Inaugural Address by John F. Kennedy: poverty. But this peaceful revolution of hope cannot become the prey of
hostile powers. Let all our neighbors know that we shall join with them
to oppose aggression or subversion anywhere in the Americas. . .and let
every other power know that this hemisphere intends to remain the master
of its own house.
To that world assembly of sovereign states: the United Nations. . .
our last best hope in an age where the instruments of war
have far outpaced the instruments of peace, we renew our pledge
of support. . .to prevent it from becoming merely a forum for
invective. . .to strengthen its shield of the new and the weak. . .
and to enlarge the area in which its writ may run.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Bureaucracy by Honore de Balzac: the world but the French people who have ideas. Can you understand,
Monsieur Poiret," [Poiret jumped as if he had been shot] "how a nation
can do without heads of divisions, general-secretaries and directors,
and all this splendid array of officials, the glory of France and of
the Emperor Napoleon,--who had his own good reasons for creating a
myriad of offices? I don't see how those nations have the audacity to
live at all. There's Austria, which has less than a hundred clerks in
her war ministry, while the salaries and pensions of ours amount to a
third of our whole budget, a thing that was unheard of before the
Revolution. I sum up all I've been saying in one single remark,
namely, that the Academy of Inscriptions and Belles-lettres, which
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Boys' Life of Abraham Lincoln by Helen Nicolay: mighty, and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a
city." Great as was his self-control in other matters, nowhere
did Mr. Lincoln's slowness to anger and nobility of spirit show
itself more than in his dealings with the generals of the Civil
War. He had been elected President. Congress had given him power
far exceeding that which any President had ever exercised before.
As President he was also Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy
of the United States. By proclamation he could call forth great
armies and he could order those armies to go wherever he chose to
send them; but even he had no power to make generals with the
genius and the training necessary to lead them instantly to
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