| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Two Poets by Honore de Balzac: consent. Then, when in a manner he had created a claim to call her his
wife, he had married her in spite of their common poverty. The
children of this marriage, like all children of love, inherited the
mother's wonderful beauty, that gift so often fatal when accompanied
by poverty. The life of hope and hard work and despair, in all of
which Mme. Chardon had shared with such keen sympathy, had left deep
traces in her beautiful face, just as the slow decline of a scanty
income had changed her ways and habits; but both she and her children
confronted evil days bravely enough. She sold the druggist's shop in
the Grand' Rue de L'Houmeau, the principal suburb of Angouleme; but it
was impossible for even one woman to exist on the three hundred francs
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Pivot of Civilization by Margaret Sanger: and diagnostic aspects, in emphasizing the danger of irresponsible and
uncontrolled fertility of the ``unfit'' and the feeble-minded
establishing a progressive unbalance in human society and lowering the
birth-rate among the ``fit.'' But in its so-called ``constructive''
aspect, in seeking to reestablish the dominance of healthy strain over
the unhealthy, by urging an increased birth-rate among the fit, the
Eugenists really offer nothing more farsighted than a ``cradle
competition'' between the fit and the unfit. They suggest in very
truth, that all intelligent and respectable parents should take as
their example in this grave matter of child-bearing the most
irresponsible elements in the community.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Golden Sayings of Epictetus by Epictetus: kinds. Some are free from hindrance and in the power of the will.
Other are subject to hindrance, and depend on the will of other
men. If then he place his own good, his own best interest, only
in that which is free from hindrance and in his power, he will be
free, tranquil, happy, unharmed, noble-hearted, and pious; giving
thanks to all things unto God, finding fault with nothing that
comes to pass, laying no charge against anything. Whereas if he
place his good in outward things, depending not on the will, he
must perforce be subject to hindrance and restraint, the slave of
those that have power over the things he desires and fears; he
must perforce be impious, as deeming himself injured at the hands
The Golden Sayings of Epictetus |
