| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Golden Sayings of Epictetus by Epictetus: CXLIV
I am free, I am a friend of God, ready to render Him willing
obedience. Of all else I may set store by nothing--neither by
mine own body, nor possessions, nor office, nor good report, nor,
in a word, aught else beside. For it is not His Will, that I
should so set store by these things. Had it been His pleasure, He
would have placed my Good therein. But now He hath not done so:
therefore I cannot transgress one jot of His commands. In
everything hold fast to that which is thy Good--but to all else
(as far as is given thee) within the measure of Reason only,
contented with this alone. Else thou wilt meet with failure, ill
The Golden Sayings of Epictetus |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Rape of Lucrece by William Shakespeare: He learn'd to sin, and thou didst teach the way?
'Think but how vile a spectacle it were
To view thy present trespass in another.
Men's faults do seldom to themselves appear;
Their own transgressions partially they smother:
This guilt would seem death-worthy in thy brother.
O how are they wrapp'd in with infamies
That from their own misdeeds askaunce their eyes!
'To thee, to thee, my heav'd-up hands appeal,
Not to seducing lust, thy rash relier;
I sue for exil'd majesty's repeal;
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Exiles by Honore de Balzac: held a green palm branch, in the other a sword of flame: the palm to
bestow on the pardoned soul, the sword to drive back all the hosts of
Hell with one sweep. As he approached, the perfumes of Heaven fell
upon us as dew. In the region where the archangel paused, the air took
the hues of opal, and moved in eddies of which he was the centre. He
paused, looked at the Shade, and said:
" 'To-morrow.'
"Then he turned heavenwards once more, spread his wings, and clove
through space as a vessel cuts through the waves, hardly showing her
white sails to the exiles left on some deserted shore.
"The Shade uttered appalling cries, to which the damned responded from
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