| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Prince by Nicolo Machiavelli: them. But as in carrying them into effect they become revealed and
known, they are at once obstructed by those men whom he has around
him, and he, being pliant, is diverted from them. Hence it follows
that those things he does one day he undoes the next, and no one ever
understands what he wishes or intends to do, and no one can rely on
his resolutions.
[*] Maximilian I, born in 1459, died 1519, Emperor of the Holy Roman
Empire. He married, first, Mary, daughter of Charles the Bold;
after her death, Bianca Sforza; and thus became involved in
Italian politics.
A prince, therefore, ought always to take counsel, but only when he
The Prince |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by Benjamin Franklin: who might desire to say something to the people at Philadelphia;
the design in building not being to accommodate any particular sect,
but the inhabitants in general; so that even if the Mufti of
Constantinople were to send a missionary to preach Mohammedanism to us,
he would find a pulpit at his service.
Mr. Whitefield, in leaving us, went preaching all the way thro'
the colonies to Georgia. The settlement of that province
had lately been begun, but, instead of being made with hardy,
industrious husbandmen, accustomed to labor, the only people fit
for such an enterprise, it was with families of broken shop-keepers
and other insolvent debtors, many of indolent and idle habits,
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Herodias by Gustave Flaubert: group of houses stood within the circle of a wall, whose outlines
undulated with the unevenness of the soil. A zigzag road, cutting
through the rocks, joined the city to the fortress, the walls of which
were about one hundred and twenty cubits high, having numerous angles
and ornamental towers that stood out like jewels in this crown of
stone overhanging an abyss.
Within the high walls stood a palace, adorned with many richly carved
arches, and surrounded by a terrace that on one side of the building
spread out below a wide balcony made of sycamore wood, upon which tall
poles had been erected to support an awning.
One morning, just before sunrise, the tetrarch, Herod-Antipas, came
Herodias |
