Evil thenceforth became my good.
Interpretation
The quote suggests that what is traditionally viewed as 'evil' can sometimes transform into something perceived as 'good' from a personal perspective.
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley's quote expresses a complex relationship between good and evil, indicating that one's understanding and interpretation of morality can shift based on personal experiences and beliefs. It implies that what might be deemed negative or harmful in societal terms can take on a positive role in the context of an individual's life, highlighting the subjective nature of morality.
In practice
In a philosophical debate on morality, one could use this quote to illustrate the complexity of ethical decisions.
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
How can one take delight in the world unless one flees to it for refuge?
For the beginning is assuredly the end- since we know nothing, pure and simple, beyond our own complexities.
Men cannot expect to do ill and fare well, but to find that done to them which they did to others.
There is no justification without sanctification, no forgiveness without renewal of life, no real faith from which the fruits of new obedience do not grow.
This I can declare: things that are in heaven are more real than things that are in the world.
We ought not to extract pernicious honey from poison blossoms of misrepresentation and mendacious half-truth, to pamper the course appetite of bigotry and self-love.
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