A mind of moderate capacity which closely pursues one study must infallibly arrive at great proficiency in that study.
Interpretation
Focusing deeply on a single subject leads to expertise and mastery.
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley emphasizes the importance of concentrating one's efforts on a singular area of study. Through dedicated and consistent pursuit, even an individual with average intellectual capabilities can achieve significant proficiency and skill in that field. This quote underlines the value of perseverance and commitment to a particular pursuit.
In practice
In a classroom setting when discussing study techniques.
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
The principal point of cleverness is to know how to value things just as they deserve.
Backlock, a poet blind from his birth, could describe visual objects with accuracy; Professor Sanderson, who was also blind, gave excellent lectures on color, and taught others the theory of ideas which they had and he had not. In the social sphere these gifted ones are mostly women; they can watch a world which they never saw, and estimate forces of which they have only heard. We call it intuition.
What is greatness? I will answer: it is the capacity to live by the three fundamental values of John Galt: reason, purpose, self-esteem.
Ever make mistakes in life? Let's make them birds. Yeah, they're birds now.
Mix a little mystery with everything, for mystery arouses veneration.
Improvement makes strait roads, but the crooked roads without Improvement, are roads of Genius.
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