Quotes from Mary Shelley

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

You may deem me romantic, my dear sister, but I bitterly feel the want of a friend.

I felt languid, and unable to reflect on all that had passed. The whole series of my life appeared to me as a dream; I sometimes doubted if indeed it were all true, for it never presented itself to my mind with the the force of reality.

I imagined that they would be disgusted, until, by my gentle demeanor and conciliating words, I should first win their favour, and afterwards their love.

To be friendless is indeed to be unfortunate; but the hearts of men, when unprejudiced by any obvious self-interest, are full of brotherly love and charity. Rely, therefore, on your hopes.

A man is blind to a thousand minute circumstances, which call forth a woman's sedulous attention.

El remordimiento anulaba cualquier esperanza. Era el autor de males irremediables, y vivía bajo el constante terror de que el monstruo que había creado cometiera otra nueva maldad.

None but those who have experienced them can conceive of the enticements of science. In other studies you go as far as others have gone before you, and there is nothing more to know; but in a scientific pursuit there is continual food for discovery and wonder.

When I reflect, my dear cousin,' said she, 'on the miserable death of Justine Moritz, I no longer see the world and its works as they before appeared to me. Before, I looked upon the accounts of vice and injustice, that I read in books or heard from others as tales of ancient days or imaginary evils; at least they were remote, and more familiar to reason than to the imagination; but now misery has come home, and men appear to me as monsters thirsting for each other's blood.

I became myself capable of bestowing animation upon lifeless matter.

What I ask of you is reasonable and moderate; I demand a creature of another sex, but as hideous as myself; the gratification is small, but it is all that I can receive, and it shall content me. 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. Our lives will not be happy, but they will be harmless, and free from the misery I now feel. Oh! my creator, make me happy; let me feel gratitude towards you of one benefit!

I no longer see the world and its works as they before appeared to me.

Here then I retreated, and lay down happy to have found a shelter, however miserable, from the inclemency of the season, and still more from the barbarity of man.

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

I gazed on my victim, and my heart swelled with exultation and hellish triumph; clapping my hands, I exclaimed, 'I too can create desolation; my enemy is not invulnerable; this death will carry despair to him, and a thousand other miseries shall torment and destroy him.

Why did I not die? More miserable than man ever was before, why did I not sink into forgetfulness and rest? Death snatches away many blooming children, the only hopes of their doting parents: how many brides and youthful lovers have been one day in the bloom of health and hope, and the next a prey for worms and the decay of the tomb! Of what materials was I made, that I could thus resist so many shocks, which, like the turning of the wheel, continually renewed the torture?

it is decided as you may have expected; all judges had rather that ten innocent should suffer, than that one guilty should escape.

C'e' un desiderio che non sono mai riuscito a soddisfare, e l'assenza che deriva mi appare come il peggiore dei mali. Non ho un amico, Margaret: quando esultero' nell'entusiasmo del mio successo, nessuno partecipera' alla mia gioia; se saro' assalito dalla delusione, nessuno cerchera' di risollevarmi dall'abbattimento. Consegnero' i miei pensieri alla carta, questo si'; ma per comunicare i sentimenti e' un mezzo insufficiente.

Like one who, on a lonely road,    Doth walk in fear and dread, And, having once turn'd round, walks on,    And turns no more his head; Because he knows a frightful fiend    Doth close behind him tread.*  * Coleridge's Ancient Mariner.

Some years ago, when the images which this world affords first opened upon me, when I felt the cheering warmth of summer and heard the rustling of the leaves and the warbling of the birds, and these were all to me, I should have wept to die; now it is my only consolation.

But where were my friends and relations? No father had watched my infant days, no mother had blessed me with smiles and caresses; or if they had, all my past life was now a blot, a blind vacancy in which I distinguished nothing. From my earliest remembrance I had been as I then was in height and proportion. I had never yet seen a being resembling me or who claimed any intercourse with me. What was I? The question again recurred, to be answered only with groans.

if no man allowed any pursuit whatsoever to interfere with the tranquillity of his domestic affections, Greece had not been enslaved, Caesar would have spared his country, America would have been discovered more gradually, and the empires of Mexico and Peru had not been destroyed.

Now I am twenty-eight, and am in reality more illiterate than many schoolboys of fifteen. It is true that I have thought more, and that my day dreams are more extended and magnificent; but they want (as the painters call it) keeping; and I greatly need a friend who would have sense enough not to despise me as romantic, and affection enough for me to endeavour to regulate my mind.

My spirits were elevated by the enchanting appearance of nature; the past was blotted from my memory, the present was tranquil, and the future gilded by bright rays of hope and anticipations of joy.