| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Phaedrus by Plato: feeling as I have about the rhetoricians? To me there seem to be a great
many holes in their web.
PHAEDRUS: Give an example.
SOCRATES: I will. Suppose a person to come to your friend Eryximachus, or
to his father Acumenus, and to say to him: 'I know how to apply drugs
which shall have either a heating or a cooling effect, and I can give a
vomit and also a purge, and all that sort of thing; and knowing all this,
as I do, I claim to be a physician and to make physicians by imparting this
knowledge to others,'--what do you suppose that they would say?
PHAEDRUS: They would be sure to ask him whether he knew 'to whom' he would
give his medicines, and 'when,' and 'how much.'
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from King Henry VI by William Shakespeare: [Alarum. Enter YORK.]
YORK.
The army of the queen hath got the field.
My uncles both are slain in rescuing me;
And all my followers to the eager foe
Turn back and fly like ships before the wind,
Or lambs pursu'd by hunger-starved wolves.
My sons--God knows what hath bechanced them;
But this I know,--they have demean'd themselves
Like men born to renown by life or death.
Three times did Richard make a lane to me,
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Damaged Goods by Upton Sinclair: shrinking from the gaze of the strange gentleman. The doctor
began in an angry voice. "Did I not tell you to come and see me
once every eight days? Is that not true?"
The woman answered, in a faint voice, "Yes, sir."
"Well," he exclaimed, "and how long has it been since you were
here?"
"Three months, sir."
"Three months! And you believe that I can take care of you under
such conditions? I give you up! Do you understand? You
discourage me, you discourage me." There was a pause. Then,
seeing the woman's suffering, he began, in a gentler tone, "Come
|