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.
Interpretation
The quote expresses the limitations of written communication in conveying deep feelings and the desire for empathetic connection with another person.
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley's quote highlights the inadequacy of written words in expressing true emotions and feelings. It reflects a yearning for genuine human connection, where mutual understanding and sympathy can be communicated through direct interaction, particularly through shared gaze and presence, rather than relying solely on the written word.
In practice
In a speech about the importance of empathy in relationships.
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.
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
I could not understand why men who knew all about good and evil could hate and kill each other.
I want to appreciate you without judging. Join you without invading. Invite you without demanding. Leave you without guilt.
Trying to learn to be a good man is like learning to play tennis against a wall. You are only a good man - a competent, capable, interesting and lovable man - when you're doing it for, or with, other people.
HIV does not make people dangerous to know, so you can shake their hands and give them a hug: Heaven knows they need it.
Trust has to be earned, and should come only after the passage of time.
The concern that some women show at the absence of their husbands, does not arise from their not seeing them and being with them, but from their apprehension that their husbands are enjoying pleasures in which they do not participate, and which, from their being at a distance, they have not the power of interrupting.
I don't think it's different to be a black girl in England than it is to be a black girl from America. We all collectively share in a pain of displacement and not feeling like we quite belong in places.
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