| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Golden Sayings of Epictetus by Epictetus: This fellow, by some accident, was afterwards
purchased by one of Caesar's men, and became a shoemaker to
Caesar. You should have seen what respect Epaphroditus paid him
then. "How does the good Felicion? Kindly let me know!" And if
any of us inquired, "What is Epaphroditus doing?" the answer was,
"He is consulting about so and so with Felicion."-- Had he not
sold him as good-for-nothing? Who had in a trice converted him
into a wiseacre?
This is what comes of holding of importance anything but the
things that depend on the Will.
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The Golden Sayings of Epictetus |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Catherine de Medici by Honore de Balzac: sides by their courtiers, received, not only day by day but from hour
to hour, terrible blows to her pride and her self-love; for the Guises
were determined to treat her on the same system of repression which
the late king, her husband, had so long pursued.
The thirty-six years of anguish which were now about to desolate
France may, perhaps, be said to have begun by the scene in which the
son of the furrier of the two queens was sent on the perilous errand
which makes him the chief figure of our present Study. The danger into
which this zealous Reformer was about to fall became imminent the very
morning on which he started from the port of Beaugency for the chateau
de Blois, bearing precious documents which compromised the highest
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia by Samuel Johnson: deliberating."
"But, surely," said Rasselas, "the wise men, to whom we listen with
reverence and wonder, chose that mode of life for themselves which
they thought most likely to make them happy."
"Very few," said the poet, "live by choice. Every man is placed in
the present condition by causes which acted without his foresight,
and with which he did not always willingly co-operate, and
therefore you will rarely meet one who does not think the lot of
his neighbour better than his own."
"I am pleased to think," said the Prince, "that my birth has given
me at least one advantage over others by enabling me to determine
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