| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Menexenus by Plato: excel you in virtue only brings us shame, but that to be excelled by you is
a source of happiness to us. And we shall most likely be defeated, and you
will most likely be victors in the contest, if you learn so to order your
lives as not to abuse or waste the reputation of your ancestors, knowing
that to a man who has any self-respect, nothing is more dishonourable than
to be honoured, not for his own sake, but on account of the reputation of
his ancestors. The honour of parents is a fair and noble treasure to their
posterity, but to have the use of a treasure of wealth and honour, and to
leave none to your successors, because you have neither money nor
reputation of your own, is alike base and dishonourable. And if you follow
our precepts you will be received by us as friends, when the hour of
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from On the Duty of Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau: it my money? It may be in a great strait, and not know what
to do: I cannot help that. It must help itself; do as I do.
It is not worth the while to snivel about it. I am not
responsible for the successful working of the machinery of
society. I am not the son of the engineer. I perceive
that, when an acorn and a chestnut fall side by side, the
one does not remain inert to make way for the other, but
both obey their own laws, and spring and grow and flourish
as best they can, till one, perchance, overshadows and
destroys the other. If a plant cannot live according to
nature, it dies; and so a man.
On the Duty of Civil Disobedience |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Sophist by Plato: all things, and cannot be attributed to not-being. Therefore not-being
cannot be predicated or expressed; for how can we say 'is,' 'are not,'
without number?
And now arises the greatest difficulty of all. If not-being is
inconceivable, how can not-being be refuted? And am I not contradicting
myself at this moment, in speaking either in the singular or the plural of
that to which I deny both plurality and unity? You, Theaetetus, have the
might of youth, and I conjure you to exert yourself, and, if you can, to
find an expression for not-being which does not imply being and number.
'But I cannot.' Then the Sophist must be left in his hole. We may call
him an image-maker if we please, but he will only say, 'And pray, what is
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