To examine the causes of life, we must first have recourse to death.
Interpretation
Understanding life requires an awareness of death.
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley's quote suggests that to truly comprehend the essence and causes of life, one must consider the inevitability of death. This perspective emphasizes the interconnectedness of existence and mortality, pointing out that the meaning of life can be illuminated by acknowledging its transience and the finite nature of our experiences.
In practice
A speaker at a graduation ceremony might use this quote to remind students to value their lives in the face of life's impermanence.
Invention, it must be humbly admitted, does not consist in creating out of a void, but out of chaos; the materials must in the first place be afforded; it can give form to dark, shapeless substances, but cannot bring into being the substance itself.
The instructor can scarcely give sensibility where it is essentially wanting, nor talent to the unpercipient block. But he can cultivate and direct the affections of the pupil, who puts forth, as a parasite, tendrils by which to cling, not knowing to what - to a supporter or a destroyer.
What terrified me will terrify others; and I need only describe the spectre which had haunted my midnight pillow.
I shall commit my thoughts to paper, it is true; but that is a poor medium for the communication of feeling. I desire the company of a man who could sympathize with me, whose eyes would reply to mine.
Heavy misfortunes have befallen us, but let us only cling closer to what remains, and transfer our love for those whom we have lost to those who yet live. Our circle will be small, but bound close by the ties of affection and mutual misfortune. And when time shall have softened your despair, new and dear objects of care will be born to replace those of whom we have been so cruelly deprived.
Hateful day when I received life!' I exclaimed in agony. 'Accursed creator! Why did you form a monster so hideous that even you turned from me in disgust? God, in pity, made man beautiful and alluring, after his own image; but my form is a filthy type of yours, more horrid even from the very resemlance. Satan had his companions, fellow-devils, to admire and encourage him; but I am solitary and abhorred.' - Frankenstein
Can honor's voice provoke the silent dust, or flattery soothe the dull, cold ear of death?
Adversity is the state in which man most easily becomes acquainted with himself, being especially free of admirers then.
I equate ego with trying to figure everything out instead of going with the flow. That closes your heart and your mind to the person or situation that's right in front of you, and you miss so much.
When you choose whether to make or keep a covenant with God, you choose whether you will leave an inheritance of hope to those who might follow your example.
I just sit here and tell the story as though I can't help it. There's always something in the day that reminds me, that sets me off all hot and guilty and scared and rambling and wistful, like I am now.
A region is an area safely larger than the last one to whose problems we found no solution.
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