The world to me was a secret, which I desired to discover; to her it was a vacancy, which she sought to people with imaginations of her own.
Interpretation
The quote reflects contrasting perceptions of the world, where one sees it as a mystery to explore while the other views it as an empty canvas to fill with ideas.
This quote by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley encapsulates the dichotomy in human perception and experience. It suggests that individuals have different approaches to the world around them; one person is driven by curiosity and a desire for discovery, while another sees the world as lacking substance and attempts to fill it with their own thoughts and fantasies. This highlights the subjective nature of reality and emphasizes how our views shape our interactions with the world.
In practice
In a discussion about creativity, this quote can emphasize the different ways people interpret their surroundings.
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
Human beings never think for themselves. For the most part, members of our species simply repeat what they are told - and become upset if they are exposed to any different view. The characteristic human trait is not awareness but conformity. We are stubborn, self-destructive conformists. Any other view of our species is just a self-congratulatory delusion.
There has been an outpouring of anger and concern because of the actions of George Zimmerman, a private citizen who profiled a young boy and pursued him and tried to confront him, perhaps. But what George Zimmerman did is no different than what police officers do every day as a matter of standard operating procedure.
Justice without force is powerless; force without justice is tyrannical.
When a woman confuses what she is with what she wears, then something is wrong inside.
We have stopped believing in progress. What progress that is !
Solitude is different from loneliness, and it doesn't have to be a lonely kind of thing.
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