Top 100 Mary Shelley Quotes
#1. I became myself capable of bestowing animation upon lifeless matter.
Mary Shelley
#2. It is certainly more creditable to cultivate the earth for the sustenance of man, than to be the confidant, and sometimes the accomplice, of his vices; which is the profession of a lawyer.
Mary Shelley
#3. It is well. I go; but remember, I shall be with you on your wedding-night.
Mary Shelley
#4. I am very averse to bringing myself forward in print, but as my account will only appear as an appendage to a former production, and as it will be confined to such topics as have connection with my authorship alone, I can hardly accuse myself of a personal intrusion.
Mary Shelley
#5. Firm; but my hopes fluctuate, and my spirits are often
Mary Shelley
#6. It is hardly surprising that women concentrate on the way they look instead of what is in their minds since not much has been put in their minds to begin with.
Mary Shelley
#7. The agonies of remorse poison the luxury there is otherwise sometimes found in the excess of grief.
Mary Shelley
#8. I could not understand why men who knew all about good and evil could hate and kill each other.
Mary Shelley
#9. Oh! Stars and clouds and winds, ye are all about to mock me; if ye really pity me, crush sensation and memory; let me become as nought; but if not, depart, depart, and leave me in darkness.
Mary Shelley
#10. Remember , that I am thy creature; I ought to be thy Adam; but I am rather the fallen angel, whom thou drivest from joy for no misdeed.
Mary Shelley
#11. 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.
Mary Shelley
#12. I persuaded myself that I was dreaming until night should come and that I should then enjoy reality in the arms of my dearest friends.
Mary Shelley
#13. My dreams were therefore undisturbed by reality; and I entered with the greatest diligence into the search of the philosopher's stone and the elixir of life. But the latter obtained my undivided attention: wealth was
Mary Shelley
#14. When one creature is murdered, another is immediately deprived of life in a slow torturing manner; then the executioners, their hands yet reeking with the blood of innocence, believe that they have done a great deed.
Mary Shelley
#15. You seek for knowledge and wisdom, as I once did; and I ardently hope that the gratification of your wishes may not be a serpent to sting you, as mine has been. - Victor Frankenstein.
Mary Shelley
#16. Teach him to think for himself? Oh, my God, teach him rather to think like other people!
Mary Shelley
#17. It is true, we shall be monsters, cut off from all the world; but on that account we shall be more attached to one another.
Mary Shelley
#18. I, a miserable wretch, haunted by a curse that shut up every avenue to enjoyment.
Mary Shelley
#19. The raising of ghosts or devils was a promise liberally accorded by my favourite authors,
Mary Shelley
#20. Strange and harrowing must be his story; frightful the storm which embraced the gallant vessel on its course, and wrecked it
thus!
Mary Shelley
#21. Excellent friend! how sincerely did you love me, and endeavour to elevate my mind until it was on a level with your own.
Mary Shelley
#22. I see by your eagerness, and the wonder and hope which your eyes express, my friend, that you expect to be in formed of the secret with which I am acquainted. That cannot be.
Mary Shelley
#23. It is a farce to call any being virtuous whose virtues do not result from the exercise of its own reason.
Mary Shelley
#24. We cannot without depraving our minds endeavour to please a lover or husband but in proportion as he pleases us.
Mary Shelley
#25. Increase of knowledge only discovered to me more clearly what a wretched outcast I was. I cherished hope, it is true, but it vanished when I beheld my person reflected in water or my shadow in the moonshine, even as that frail image and that inconstant shade.
Mary Shelley
#26. I have thus endeavoured to preserve the truth of the elementary principles of human
Mary Shelley
#27. Nothing contributes so much to tranquilize the mind as a steady purpose
Mary Shelley
#28. Life is obstinate and clings closest where it is most hated.
Mary Shelley
#29. But her's was the misery of innocence, which, like a cloud that passes over the fair moon, for a while hides, but cannot tarnish its brightness.
Mary Shelley
#30. 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.
Mary Shelley
#31. I contempleted the lake; the waters were placid, all around was calm and the snowy mountains ... the calm and heavenly scene restored me and I continued my journey toward Geneva.
Mary Shelley
#32. I am not a person of opinions because I feel the counter arguments too strongly.
Mary Shelley
#33. She was no longer that happy creature who in earlier youth wandered with me on the banks of the lake and talked with ecstasy of our future prospects. The first of those sorrows which are sent to wean us from the earth had visited her, and its dimming influence quenched her dearest smiles.
Mary Shelley
#34. I saw- with shut eyes, but acute mental vision- I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together ... Frightful must it be, for supremely frightful would be the effect of any human endeavor to mock the stupendous mechanism of the Creator of the world.
Mary Shelley
#35. Ignominious grave, and I the cause! A thousand times
Mary Shelley
#36. What can stop the determined heart and resolved will of man?
Mary Shelley
#37. The sight of the awful and majestic in nature had indeed always the effect of solemnising my mind and causing me to forget the passing cares of life.
Mary Shelley
#38. My own mind began to grow, watchful with anxoius thoughts.
Mary Shelley
#39. His landlady came to the door, loosely wrapped in dressing gown and shawl; her husband followed ejaculating.
Mary Shelley
#40. The blood flowed freely in my veins, but a weight of despair and remorse pressed on my heart, which nothing could remove.
Mary Shelley
#41. He strove to shelter her, as a fair exotic is sheltered by the gardener, from every rougher wind, and to surround her with all that could tend to excite pleasurable emotion in her soft and benevolent mind.
Mary Shelley
#42. I do know that for the sympathy of one living being, I would make peace with all. I have love in me the likes of which you can scarcely imagine and rage the likes of which you would not believe. If I cannot satisfy the one, I will indulge the other.
Mary Shelley
#43. I am about to proceed on a long and difficult voyage, the emergencies of which will demand all my fortitude: I am required not only to raise the spirits of others, but sometimes to sustain my own, when theirs are failing.
Mary Shelley
#44. Of what a strange nature is knowledge! It clings to a mind when it has once seized on it like a lichen on a rock.
- Frankenstein p115
Mary Shelley
#45. The haughty princess of Austria, who became, as queen of England, the head of fashion, looked with harsh eyes on his defects, and with contempt on the affection her royal husband entertained for him.
Mary Shelley
#46. No man chooses evil because it is evil; he only mistakes it for happiness, the good he seeks.
Mary Shelley
#47. And now, once again, I bid my hideous progeny go forth and prosper. I have an affection for it, for it was the offspring of happy days, when death and grief were but words, which found no true echo in my heart.
Mary Shelley
#48. If the study to which you apply yourself has a tendency to weaken your affections and to destroy your taste for those simple pleasures in which no alloy can possibly mix, then that study is certainly unlawful, that is to say, not befitting the human mind.
Mary Shelley
#49. Henry deeply felt the misfortune of being debarred from a liberal education.
Mary Shelley
#50. He is dead who called me into being, and when I shall be no more the very remembrance of us both will speedily vanish.
Mary Shelley
#51. Sir Isaac Newton is said to have avowed that he felt like a child picking up shells beside the great and unexplored ocean of truth.
Mary Shelley
#52. A mind of moderate capacity which closely pursues one study must infallibly arrive at great proficiency in that study.
Mary Shelley
#53. My courage and my resolution is firm; but my hopes fluctuate, and my spirits are often depressed.
Mary Shelley
#54. I beheld the wretch-the miserable monster whom I had created.
Mary Shelley
#55. 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.
Mary Shelley
#56. The name of Italy has magic in its very syllables.
Mary Shelley
#57. 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 resemblance. Satan had his companions, fellow devils, to admire and encourage him, but I am solitary and abhorred.
Mary Shelley
#58. The cup of life was poisoned forever, and although the sun shone upon me, as upon the happy and gay of heart, I saw around me nothing but a dense and frightful darkness, penetrated by no light but the glimmer of two eyes that glared upon me.
Mary Shelley
#59. So much has been done, exclaimed the soul of Frankenstein
more, far more, will I achieve; treading in the steps already marked, I will pioneer a new way, explore unknown powers, and unfold to the world the deepest mysteries of creation.
Mary Shelley
#60. Devil, cease; and do not poison the air with these sounds of malice. I have declared my resolution to you, and I am no coward to bend beneath words. Leave me; I am inexorable.
Mary Shelley
#61. But now misery has come home, and men appear to me as monsters thirsting for each other's blood.
Mary Shelley
#62. Was man, indeed, at once so powerful, so virtuous, and magnificent, yet so viscious and base? He appeared at one time a mere scion of evil principle and at another as all that can be conceived as noble and godlike.
Mary Shelley
#63. The guilty are allowed, by human laws, bloody as they are, to speak in their own defence before they are condemned.
Mary Shelley
#64. After so much time spent in painful labor, to arrive at once at the summit of my desires was the most gratifying consummation of my toils.
Mary Shelley
#65. I persuaded myself that when they should become acquainted with my admiration of their virtues, they would compassionate me, and overlook my personal deformity. Could they turn from their door one, however monstrous, who solicited their compassion and friendship?
Mary Shelley
#66. The different accidents of life are not so changeable as the feelings of human nature.
Mary Shelley
#67. Polluted by crimes, and torn by the bitterest remorse, where can I find rest but in death?
Mary Shelley
#68. Do I not deserve to accomplish some great purpose. My life might have passed in ease and luxury; but I preferred glory to every enticement that wealth placed in my path.
Mary Shelley
#69. Perfect happiness is an attribute of angels; and those who have it, appear angelic
Mary Shelley
#70. I wished sometimes to shake off all thought and feeling, but I learned that there was but one means to overcome the sensation of pain, and that was death - a state which I feared yet did not understand.
Mary Shelley
#71. Enter the house of mourning, my friend, but with kindness and affection for those who love you, and not with hatred for your enemies.
Mary Shelley
#72. My heart was fashioned to be susceptible of love and sympathy, and when wrenched by misery to vice and hatred, it did not endure the violence of the change without torture such as you cannot even imagine.
Mary Shelley
#73. Oh, come to me in dreams, my love!
I will not ask a dearer bliss;
Come with the starry beams, my love,
And press mine eyelids with thy kiss.
Mary Shelley
#74. Will revenge my injuries; if I cannot inspire love, I will cause fear, and chiefly towards you my arch-enemy, because my creator, do I swear
Mary Shelley
#75. A slavish bondage to parents cramps every faculty of the mind.
Mary Shelley
#76. The labours of men of genius, however erroneously directed, scarcely ever fail in ultimately turning to the solid advantage of mankind.
Mary Shelley
#77. What did this mean? Who was I? What was I? Whence did I come? What was my destination?
Mary Shelley
#78. The agony of my feelings allowed me no respite; no incident occurred from which my rage and misery could not extract its food.
Mary Shelley
#79. What may not be expected in a country of eternal light
Mary Shelley
#80. When you speak of new ties and fresh affections, think you that any can replace those who are gone?
Mary Shelley
#81. When happy, inanimate nature had the power of bestowing on me the most delightful sensations.
Mary Shelley
#82. A man is blind to a thousand minute circumstances, which call forth a woman's sedulous attention.
Mary Shelley
#83. Invention, it must be humbly admitted, does not consist in creating out of void but out of chaos.
Mary Shelley
#84. I trembled, and my heart failed within me; when, on looking up, I saw, by the light of the moon, the daemon at the casement.
Mary Shelley
#85. What terrified me will terrify others; and I need only describe the spectre which had haunted my midnight pillow.
Mary Shelley
#86. I was new to sorrow, but it did not the less alarm me.
Mary Shelley
#87. My heart, which was before sorrowful, now swelled with something like joy; I exclaimed, Wandering spirits, if indeed ye wander, and do not rest in your narrow beds, allow me this faint happiness, or take me, as your companion, away from the joys of life.
Mary Shelley
#88. We are unfashioned creatures, but half made up, if one wiser, better, dearer than ourselves - such a friend ought to be - do not lend his aid to perfectionate our weak and faulty natures.
Mary Shelley
#89. By the sacred earth on which I kneel, by the shades that wander near me, by the deep and eternal grief that I feel, I swear; and by thee, O Night, and the spirits that preside over thee, to pursue the demon who caused this misery, until he or I shall perish in mortal conflict.
Mary Shelley
#90. My vices are the children of a forced solitude that I abhor, and my virtues will necessarily arise when I live in communion with an equal.
Mary Shelley
#91. I spread the whole earth out as a map before me. On no one spot of its surface could I put my finger and say, here is safety.
Mary Shelley
#92. In other studies you go as far as other have gone before you, and there is nothing more to know; but in a scientific pursuit there is continual food for discovery and wonder.
Mary Shelley
#93. But I believed myself totally unfitted for the company of strangers. Such were my reflections as I commenced my journey; but as I proceeded, my spirits and hopes rose.
Mary Shelley
#94. Who could be interested in the fate of a murderer, but the hangman who would gain his fee?
Mary Shelley
#95. One as deformed and horrible as myself, could not deny herself to me. My companion must be of the same species, and have the same defects ... with whom I can live in the interchange of those sympathies necessary for my being ...
Mary Shelley
#96. I spoke of my desire of finding a friend, of my thirst for a more intimate sympathy with a fellow mind than had ever fallen to my lot, and expressed my conviction that a man could boast of little happiness who did not enjoy this blessing.
Mary Shelley
#97. I confess that neither the structure of the languages, nor the code of governments, nor the politics of various states possessed attractions for me. It was the secrets of heaven and earth that I desired to learn.
Mary Shelley
#98. I heard of the slothful Asiatics, of the stupendous genius and mental activity of the Grecians, of the wars and wonderful virtue of the early Romans - of their subsequent degenerating - of the decline of that mighty empire, of chivalry, Christianity, and kings.
Mary Shelley
#99. But now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart
Mary Shelley
#100. Ah! it is well for the unfortunate to be resigned, but for the guilty there is no peace.
Mary Shelley
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