The guilty are allowed, by human laws, bloody as they are, to speak in their own defence before they are condemned.
Interpretation
This quote reflects on the justice system's allowance for the accused to defend themselves, regardless of their guilt.
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley highlights the paradox of human laws that permit individuals who have committed heinous acts, referred to as 'the guilty,' to present their defense before facing condemnation. This raises essential questions about justice, morality, and the rights of the accused in a legal system that seeks to balance fairness against the severity of oneβs actions.
In practice
This quote could be used in a debate about criminal justice reform.
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
We are the children of our landscape; it dictates behavior and even thought in the measure to which we are responsive to it.
When sitting in meditation, say, "That's not my business!" with every thought that comes by.
If a victory is told in detail, one can no longer distinguish it from a defeat.
At first Babel longed for the use of just two words: Yes and No. But he knew that just to utter a single word would be to destroy the delicate fluency of silence.
If we are concerned about the exploitation of human workers in countries with low standards of worker protection, we should also be concerned about the treatment of even more defenceless non-human animals.
Vengeance and retribution require a long time; it is the rule.
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