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.
Interpretation
Despite facing significant losses, it is important to cherish the love for those still present in our lives.
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley's quote speaks to the resilience of human relationships in the face of adversity. While we may experience heavy misfortunes and loss, the quote encourages us to focus on the love and bonds that remain, suggesting that as time passes, we can find new sources of love and care that help to heal our wounds. It highlights the importance of community and affection as a means to navigate through grief and despair.
In practice
This quote can be used in a eulogy to emphasize the importance of cherishing loved ones.
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.
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 could not understand why men who knew all about good and evil could hate and kill each other.
They talked so, with secret hearts, without needing words, talking of other things... They could have suddenly continued their confessions aloud, without ceasing to understand each other.
Humanity, its dignity and its balance, will depend at every moment and on every place on the globe,on who man is for woman and who woman is for man.
Whenever you tell a group of people that they can't use bathrooms, or they can't access spaces that other people use, that is dehumanizing. It is discriminatory, and it reinforces the stigma and the prejudices that the transgender community already faces.
With emotional abuse, the insults, insinuations, criticism, and accusations slowly eat away at the victim’s self-esteem until he or she is incapable of judging a situation realistically. He or she may begin to believe that there is something wrong with them or even fear they are losing their mind. They have become so beaten down emotionally that they blame themselves for the abuse.
In any case, community is not about perfect people. It is about people who are bonded to each other, each of whom is a mixture of good and bad, darkness and light, love and hate.
You want to give me chocolate and flowers? That would be great. I love them both. I just don't want them out of guilt, and I don't want them if you're not going to give them to all the people who helped mother our children.
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