The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Two Noble Kinsmen by William Shakespeare: And to his face, no man. Ile presently
Provide him necessaries, and packe my cloathes up,
And where there is a patch of ground Ile venture,
So hee be with me; By him, like a shadow,
Ile ever dwell; within this houre the whoobub
Will be all ore the prison: I am then
Kissing the man they looke for: farewell, Father;
Get many more such prisoners and such daughters,
And shortly you may keepe your selfe. Now to him!
Actus Tertius.
Scaena 1. (A forest near Athens.)
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin: it, then, be thought improbable, seeing that variations useful to man have
undoubtedly occurred, that other variations useful in some way to each
being in the great and complex battle of life, should sometimes occur in
the course of thousands of generations? If such do occur, can we doubt
(remembering that many more individuals are born than can possibly survive)
that individuals having any advantage, however slight, over others, would
have the best chance of surviving and of procreating their kind? On the
other hand, we may feel sure that any variation in the least degree
injurious would be rigidly destroyed. This preservation of favourable
variations and the rejection of injurious variations, I call Natural
Selection. Variations neither useful nor injurious would not be affected
 On the Origin of Species |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Lysis by Plato: himself begotten of Zeus by the daughter of the founder of the deme. And
these are the sort of old wives' tales which he sings and recites to us,
and we are obliged to listen to him.
When I heard this, I said: O ridiculous Hippothales! how can you be making
and singing hymns in honour of yourself before you have won?
But my songs and verses, he said, are not in honour of myself, Socrates.
You think not? I said.
Nay, but what do you think? he replied.
Most assuredly, I said, those songs are all in your own honour; for if you
win your beautiful love, your discourses and songs will be a glory to you,
and may be truly regarded as hymns of praise composed in honour of you who
 Lysis |