Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Quotes

You will rejoice to hear that no disaster has accompanied the commencement of an enterprise which you have regarded with such evil forebodings.

From my birth I have aspired like the eagle - but unlike the eagle, my wings have failed. . . . Congratulate me then that I have found a fitting scope for my powers.

Poetry, and the principle of Self, of which money is the visible incarnation, are the God and the Mammon of the world.

My own mind began to grow, watchful with anxoius thoughts.

The careful rearer of the ductile human plant can instil his own religion, and surround the soul by such a moral atmosphere, as shall become to its latest day the air it breathes.

The modern masters promise very little

Sorrow only increased with knowledge.

What are we, the inhabitants of this globe, least among the many that people infinite space? Our minds embrace infinity; the visible mechanism of our being is subject to merest accident.

After days and nights of incredible labor and fatigue, I succeeded in discovering the cause of generation and life. Nay, more, I became myself capable of bestowing animation upon lifeless matter.

His conversation was marked by its happy abundance.

Once a king ... it was impossible, without risk of life, to sink to a private station.

It is with considerable difficulty that I remember the original era of my being

A lofty sense of independence is, in man, the best privilege of his nature.

One man's life or death were but a small price to pay for the acquirement of the knowledge which I sought

Man," I cried, "how ignorant art thou in thy pride of wisdom!

I am not a person of opinions because I feel the counter arguments too strongly.

I am malicious because I am miserable

I saw no cause for their unhappiness, but I was deeply affected by it. If such lovely creatures were miserable, it was less strange that I, an imperfect and solitary being, should be wretched.

Polluted by crimes, and torn by the bitterest remorse, where can I find rest but in death?

Listen to me, Frankenstein. You accuse me of murder; and yet you would, with a satisfied conscience, destroy your own creature. Oh, praise the eternal justice of man!

The fallen angel becomes a malignant devil. Yet even that enemy of God and man had friends and associates in his desolation; I am alone.

Ennui, the demon, waited at the threshold of his noiseless refuge, and drove away the stirring hopes and enlivening expectations, which form the better part of life.

All judges had rather that ten innocent should suffer than that one guilty should escape.

If you will comply with my conditions, I will leave them and you at peace; but if you refuse, I will glut the maw of death, until it be satiated with the blood of your remaining friends.

I leave a sad and bitter world; and if you remember me, and think of me as of one unjustly condemned, I am resigned to the fate awaiting me.

Even the eternal skies weep, I thought; is there any shame then, that mortal man should spend himself in tears?

Truly disappointment is the guardian deity of human life; she sits at the threshold of unborn time, and marshals the events as they come forth.

the sentiment of immediate loss in some sort decayed, while that of utter, irremediable loneliness grew on me with time.

There was a considerable difference between the ages of my parents, but this circumstance seemed to unite them only closer in bonds of devoted affection.

Invention, it must be humbly admitted, does not consist in creating out of void but out of chaos.

nothing contributes so much to tranquilize the mind as a steady purpose

If your wish is to become really a man of science and not merely a petty experimentalist, I should advise you to apply to every branch of natural philosophy, including mathematics.

the companions of our childhood always possess a certain power over our minds which hardly any later friend can obtain.

My life, as it passes thus, was indeed hateful to me, and it was during sleep alone that I could taste joy. O blessed sleep!

For the first time she knew and loved the Spirit of good and beauty, an affinity to which affords the greatest bliss that our nature can receive.

She saw and marked the revolutions that had been, and the present seemed to her only a point of rest, from which time was to renew his flight.

So much does suffering blunt even the coarsest sensations of men

Surely once in a life God will grant the earnest entreaty of a loving heart.

The agonies of remorse poison the luxury there is otherwise sometimes found in the excess of grief.

Those moral laws on which all human excellence is founded—a love of truth in ourselves, and a sincere sympathy with our fellow-creatures.

This advice, although good, was totally inapplicable to my case.

What is there in our nature that is for ever urging us on towards pain and misery?

Cursed, cursed creator! Why did I live? Why, in that instant, did I not extinguish the spark of existence which you had so wantonly bestowed?

Alas! he is cold, he cannot answer me.

I looked upon the sea, it was to be my grave

Even where the affections are not strongly moved by any superior excellence the companions of our childhood always possess a certain power over our minds which hardly any later friend can obtain.

Nothing contributes so much to tranquilize the mind as a steady purpose-a point on which the soul may fix its intellectual eye.

I do not wish women to have power over men but over themselves.

My imagination, unbidden, possessed and guided me, gifting the successive images that arose in my mind with a vivdness far beyond the usual bounds of reverie....

I seemed to have lost all soul or sensation but for this one pursuit.