Men become cannibals of their own hearts; remorse, regret, and restless impatience usurp the place of more wholesome feeling: every thing seems better than that which is.
Interpretation
This quote reflects on how negative emotions can consume one's better feelings, leading to a perceived need for something different than one's current situation.
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley's quote delves into the darker aspects of human emotions, illustrating how feelings of remorse, regret, and impatience can overshadow positive sentiments. It suggests that these negative emotions are so potent that they can drive individuals to retract from their own hearts and desires, creating a longing for a better state of being that might not align with reality. The metaphor of becoming 'cannibals' implies a self-destructive behavior where one's true emotions are devoured by these 'wholesome' feelings that now feel out of reach.
In practice
In discussions about mental health, this quote can highlight the impact of negative feelings.
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
There must be another life, she thought, sinking back into her chair, exasperated. Not in dreams; but here and now, in this room, with living people. She felt as if she were standing on the edge of a precipice with her hair blown back; she was about to grasp something that just evaded her. There must be another life, here and now, she repeated. This is too short, too broken. We know nothing, even about ourselves.
We're terrible animals. I think that the Earth's immune system is trying to get rid of us, as well it should.
If when you say 'whiskey' you mean the devil's brew, the poison scourge, the bloody monster that defiles innocence, dethrones reason... then I am certainly against it. But, if when you say 'whiskey' you mean the oil of conversation, the philosophic wine... the drink that enables a man to magnify his joy... then I am certainly for it. This is my stand. I will not retreat from it. I will not compromise.
I believe there is no philosophical high-road in science, with epistemological signposts. No, we are in a jungle and find our way by trial and error, building our road behind us as we proceed.
Acceptance of one's life has nothing to do with resignation; it does not mean running away from the struggle. On the contrary, it means accepting it as it comes, with all the handicaps of heredity, of suffering, of psychological complexes and injustices.
Occasionally, the whole class struggle may be summed up in the struggle for one word against another word. Certain words struggle amongst themselves as enemies. Other words are the site of an ambiguity: the stake in a decisive but undecided battle
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.