Quotes from Mary Shelley

Yet with how many things are we upon the brink of becoming acquainted, if cowardice or carelessness did not restrain our inquires.

solitude was my only consolation—deep, dark, deathlike solitude.

The night passed away, and the sun rose from the ocean; my feelings became calmer, if it may be called calmness when the violence of rage sinks into the depths of despair. I left the house, the horrid scene of the last night's contention, and walked on the beach of the sea, which I almost regarded as an insuperable barrier between me and my fellow creatures.

It is well for the unfortunate to be resigned, but for the guilty there is no peace. The agonies of remorse poison the luxury there is otherwise sometimes found in indulging the excess of grief.

Sometimes I could cope with the sullen despair that overwhelmed me: but sometimes the whirlwind passions of my soul drove me to seek, by bodily exercise and by change of place, some relief from my intolerable sensations. It was during an access of this kind that I suddenly left my home, and bending my steps towards the near Alpine valleys, sought in the magnificence, the eternity of such scenes, to forget myself and my ephemeral, because human, sorrows.

Harmony was the soul of our companionship, and the diversity and contrast that subsisted in our characters drew us nearer together.

To bestow on your fellow men is a Godlike attribute--So indeed it is and as such not one fit for mortality;--the giver, like Adam and Prometheus, must pay the penalty of rising above his nature by being the martyr of his own excellence.

When I run over the frightful catalogue of my sins, I cannot believe that I am the same creature whose thoughts were once filled with sublime and transcendent visions of the beauty and the majesty of goodness. But it is even so; the fallen angel becomes a malignant devil.

Shall I not then hate them who abhor me?

But my enthusiasm was checked by my anxiety, and I appeared rather like one doomed by slavery to toil in the mines, or any other unwholesome trade than an artist occupied by his favorite employment.

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?

My total friendlessness, my horror of pushing, and inability to put myself forward unless led, cherished and supported – all this has sunk me in a state of loneliness no other human being, ever before, I believe endured – except Robinson Crusoe . .

No guilt, no mischief, no malignity, no misery, can be found comparable to mine. When I run over the frightful catalogue of my sins, I cannot believe that I am the same creature whose thoughts were once filled with sublime and transcendent visions of the beauty and the majesty of goodness. But it is even so; 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.

Excellent friend! how sincerely did you love me, and endeavour to elevate my mind until it was on a level with your own.

My heart palpitated in the sickness of fear; and I hurried on with irregular steps, not daring to look about me: 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.

Thus not the tenderness of friendship, nor the beauty of earth, nor of heaven, could redeem my soul from woe; the very accents of love were ineffectual. I was encompassed by a cloud which no beneficial influence could penetrate. The wounded deer dragging its fainting limbs to some untrodden brake, there to gaze upon the arrow which had

The guilty are allowed, by human laws, bloody as they may be, to speak in their own defence before they are condemned.

Yo en cambio llevaba un infierno dentro de mi, y nadie podría arrancarlo jamás

panegyric upon modern chemistry, the terms of which I shall never

They penetrate into the recesses of nature, and shew how she works in her hiding places. They ascend into the heavens; they have discovered how the blood circulates, and the nature of the air we breathe. They have acquired new and almost unlimited powers; they can command the thunders of heaven, mimic the earthquake

Happy are dreamers, he continued, so that they be not awakened! Would I could dream!

It was, perhaps, the amiable character of this man that inclined me more to that branch of natural philosophy which he professed, than an intrinsic love for the science itself.

Listen to me, Frankenstein. You accuse me of murder, and yet you would, with a satisfied conscience, destroy your own creature.

Her hair was the brightest living gold, and despite the poverty of her clothing, seemed to set a crown of distinction on her head. Her brow was clear and ample, her blue eyes cloudless, and her lips and the moulding of her face so expressive of sensibility and sweetness, that none could behold her without looking on her as of a distinct species, a being heaven-sent, and bearing a celestial stamp in all her features.