Nothing is more painful to the human mind than, after the feelings have been worked up by a quick succession of events, the dead calmness of inaction and certainty which follows and deprives the soul both of hope and fear.
Interpretation
The quote highlights the discomfort of transitioning from intense emotions to a state of inaction and certainty, leading to a loss of hope and fear.
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley's quote reflects on the human experience of emotional highs and lows. It suggests that after experiencing intense events that evoke strong feelings, the subsequent stillness and lack of action can be profoundly unsettling. This stillness devoid of hope or fear creates a void that can be even more painful than the preceding emotional turmoil, as our minds crave engagement and purpose.
In practice
Using this quote in a discussion about mental health and the importance of emotional engagement.
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
Ah, what a sign it is of evil life, Where death's approach is seen so terrible!
Even if I accepted that Jesus - like almost every other prophet on record - was born of a virgin, I cannot think that this proves the divinity of his father or the truth of his teachings. The same would be true if I accepted that he had been resurrected.
Thanks to impermanence, everything is possible.
Service is the rent we pay for living.
War is not the best way of settling differences; it is the only way of preventing their being settled for you.
I wonder how many people I've looked at all my life and never seen.
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