And Nature takes no account of moral consequences, of arbitrary conditions which we create, and which we feel obliged to maintain at any cost.
Interpretation
Nature operates independently of human morals and constructs.
In this quote, Kate Chopin emphasizes the idea that nature is indifferent to human morality and the arbitrary conditions we impose on ourselves. It suggests that human constructs, such as morals and social norms, do not influence the natural world, highlighting a tension between human ideals and natural laws.
In practice
In a speech about environmental conservation, this quote can illustrate the importance of understanding natural laws over human-made regulations.
She looked into the distance, and the old terror flamed up for an instant, then sank again. Edna heard her father's voice and her sister Margaret's. She heard the barking of an old dog that was chained to the sycamore tree. The spurs of the cavalry officer clanged as he walked across the porch. There was the hum of bees, and the musky odor of pinks filled the air. (last lines)
There were days when she was unhappy, she did not know why,--when it did not seem worthwhile to be glad or sorry, to be alive or dead; when life appeared to her like a grotesque pandemonium and humanity like worms struggling blindly toward inevitable annihilation.
She's got some sort of notion in her head concerning the eternal rights of women.
Well, for instance, when I left her today, she put her arms around me and felt my shoulder blades, to see if my wings were strong, she said.
I would give up the unessential; I would give my money, I would give my life for my children; but I wouldn't give myself.
There would be no one there to live for her during those coming years; she would live for herself. There would be no powerful will bending hers in that blind persistance with which men and women believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow-creature. A kind intention or a cruel intention made the act seem no less a crime as she looked upon it in that brief moment of illumination.
If you don't have a moral question governing your society, then you don't have a society that is going to survive.
The right of a nation to kill a tyrant in case of necessity can no more be doubted than to hang a robber, or kill a flea.
Modern systematic politics, whether liberal, conservative, radical, or socialist, simply has to be rejected from a standpoint that owes genuine allegiance to the tradition of the virtues; for modern politics itself expresses in its institutional forms a systematic rejection of that tradition
The concept of substitution lies at the heart of both sin and salvation. For the essence of sin is man substituting himself for God, while the essence of salvation is God substituting himself for man.
The virtues are lost in self-interest as rivers are lost in the sea.
In the fulfillment of your duties, let your intentions be so pure that you reject from your actions any other motive than the glory of God and the salvation of souls.
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