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
I think women are very complicated human beings, and I think there's an oversimplification of women when you see them on screen.
I insist that men shall have the right to work out their lives in their own way, always allowing to others the right to work out their lives in their own way, too.
It is true that we aspire to our ancient land. But what we want in that ancient land is a new blossoming of the Jewish spirit.
Nor does God whisper through the trees. His voice is not to be mistaken. When men hear it they fall to their knees and their souls are riven and they cry out to Him and there is no fear but only wildness of heart that springs from such longing.
These unwritten amenities have been in part responsible for giving our people the feeling of independence and self-confidence, the feeling of creativity. These amenities have dignified the right of dissent and have honored the right to be nonconformists and the right to defy submissiveness. They have encouraged lives of high spirits rather than hushed, suffocating silence.
Money to me is not a factor in my life.
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