| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia by Samuel Johnson: of domestic life, and addressed a lady that was fond of my
conversation, but rejected my suit because my father was a
merchant.
"Wearied at last with solicitation and repulses, I resolved to hide
myself for ever from the world, and depend no longer on the opinion
or caprice of others. I waited for the time when the gate of the
Happy Valley should open, that I might bid farewell to hope and
fear; the day came, my performance was distinguished with favour,
and I resigned myself with joy to perpetual confinement."
"Hast thou here found happiness at last?" said Rasselas. "Tell me,
without reserve, art thou content with thy condition, or dost thou
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Aesop's Fables by Aesop: The Wolf and the Crane The Serpent and the File
The Man and the Serpent The Man and the Wood
The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse The Dog and the Wolf
The Fox and the Crow The Belly and the Members
The Sick Lion The Hart in the Ox-Stall
The Ass and the Lapdog The Fox and the Grapes
The Lion and the Mouse The Horse, Hunter, and Stag
The Swallow and the Other Birds The Peacock and Juno
The Frogs Desiring a King The Fox and the Lion
The Mountains in Labour The Lion and the Statue
The Hares and the Frogs The Ant and the Grasshopper
Aesop's Fables |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Gorgias by Plato: in the rightly-developed man the passions ought not to be controlled, but
that we should let them grow to the utmost and somehow or other satisfy
them, and that this is virtue?
CALLICLES: Yes; I do.
SOCRATES: Then those who want nothing are not truly said to be happy?
CALLICLES: No indeed, for then stones and dead men would be the happiest
of all.
SOCRATES: But surely life according to your view is an awful thing; and
indeed I think that Euripides may have been right in saying,
'Who knows if life be not death and death life;'
and that we are very likely dead; I have heard a philosopher say that at
|
