Quotes from Mary Shelley

To examine the causes of life, we must first have recourse to death.

nothing contributes so much to tranquillize the mind as a steady purpose—a point on which the soul may fix its intellectual eye. This

mi objetivo. Me sentía como el árabe que enterrado junto a los muertos encontró un pasadizo por el cual volver al mundo, sin más ayuda que una luz mortecina y apenas suficiente. Amigo mío, veo por su interés, y por el asombro y expectativa que reflejan sus ojos, que espera que le comunique el secreto que poseo; mas no puede

God blesses all things, she thought, and he will also bless me. Much wrong have I done, but love pure and disinterested is in my heart, and I shall be repaid.

It is a farce to call any being virtuous whose virtues do not result from the exercise of its own reason.

Henry deeply felt the misfortune of being debarred from a liberal education.

To be a great and virtuous man appeared the highest honour that can befall a sensitive being; to be base and vicious, as many on record have been, appeared the lowest degradation, a condition more abject than that of the blind mole or harmless worm.

There is a love for the marvellous, a belief in the marvellous, interwined in all my projects, which hurries me out of the common pathways of men.

The blue lake, the snow-clad mountains--they never change. And I think our placid home and contented hearts are regulated by the same immutable law.

I had begun life with benevolent intentions, and thirsted for the moment when I should put them in practise, and make myself useful to my fellow begins.

The time at length arrives when grief is rather an indulgence than a necessity; and the smile that plays upon the lips, although it may be deemed a sacrilege, is not banished.

then reflected, and the thought made me shiver, that the creature whom I had left in my apartment might still be there, alive, and walking about.

I learned that the possessions most esteemed by your fellow creatures were high and unsullied descent united with riches. A man might be respected with only one of these advantages, but without either he was considered, except in very rare instances, as a vagabond and a slave, doomed to waste his powers for the profits of the chosen few

One man's life or death were but a small price to pay for the acquirement of the knowledge which I sought, for the dominion I should acquire and transmit over the elemental foes of our race. As

El ser humano perfecto debe conservar siempre la calma y la paz de espíritu y no permitir jamas que la pasión o el deseo fugaz turben su tranquilidad. No creo que perseguir el conocimiento sea una excepción. Si el estudio al que te consagras tiende a debilitar tu afecto y a destruir esos placeres sencillos en los cuales no debe intervenir aleación alguna, entonces, ese estudio es inevitablemente negativo, es decir, impropio de la mente humana.

I now hasten to the more moving part of my story. I shall relate events that impressed me with feelings which, from what I was, have made me what I am.

now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart.

Almost spent, as I was, by fatigue and the dreadful suspense I endured for several hours, this sudden certainty of life rushed like a flood of warm joy to my heart, and tears gushed from my eyes. How mutable are our feelings, and how strange is that clinging love we have of life even in the excess of misery!

Sentía en el corazón el ansia de hacerme conocer y querer por aquellas criaturas adorables; ver sus dulces rostros vueltos hacia mí con afecto era mi máxima ambición.

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.

Non v'è contributo migliore di un fermo proposito per tranquillizzare la mente, di un obiettivo, cioè, su cui l'anima fissi il suo sguardo intellettivo.

I have love in me the likes of which you can scarcely imagine and rage the likes of which you would not believe.

Of what a strange nature is knowledge! It clings to the mind when it has once seized on it like a lichen on the rock. I

But by some fatality I did not feel inclined to commence the study of any modern system; and this disinclination was influenced by the following circumstance. My