| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Golden Sayings of Epictetus by Epictetus: homes, and leave parents, friends, kinsmen and substance to mouth
out Bravo to your empty phrases!
CXXII
If any be unhappy, let him remember that he is unhappy by
reason of himself alone. For God hath made all men to enjoy
felicity and constancy of good.
CXXIII
Shall we never wean ourselves--shall we never heed the
teachings of Philosophy (unless perchance they have been sounding
in our ears like and enchanter's drone):--
This World is one great City, and one if the substance
The Golden Sayings of Epictetus |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Master of the World by Jules Verne: at a distance of only six miles. The mountain crests were sharply
outlined against the clear sky. Well wooded at the base, they grew
more bare and showed only stunted evergreens toward the summit. There
the scraggly trees, grotesquely twisted, gave to the rocky heights a
bleak and bizarre appearance. Here and there the ridge rose in sharp
peaks. On our right the Black Dome, nearly seven thousand feet high,
reared its gigantic head, sparkling at times above the clouds.
"Have you ever climbed that dome, Mr. Smith?" I asked.
"No," answered he, "but I am told that it is a very difficult ascent.
A few mountaineers have climbed it; but they report that it has no
outlook commanding the crater of the Great Eyrie."
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Prince Otto by Robert Louis Stevenson: looked towards Mittwalden; and above the hill-top, which already hid
it from her view, a throbbing redness hinted of fire. Better so:
better so, that she should fall with tragic greatness, lit by a
blazing palace! She felt not a trace of pity for Gondremark or of
concern for Grunewald: that period of her life was closed for ever,
a wrench of wounded vanity alone surviving. She had but one clear
idea: to flee; - and another, obscure and half-rejected, although
still obeyed: to flee in the direction of the Felsenburg. She had a
duty to perform, she must free Otto - so her mind said, very coldly;
but her heart embraced the notion of that duty even with ardour, and
her hands began to yearn for the grasp of kindness.
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