Quotes from Mary Shelley

He felt that every sorrow was less than that which separation must produce; and that to share adversity with her was greater happiness than the enjoyment prosperity apart from her.

The world will never be again to me as it was; there was a life and freshness in it that is lost to me.

But I am a blasted tree; the bolt has entered my soul; and I felt then that I should survive to exhibit what I shall soon cease to be - a miserable spectacle of wrecked humanity, pitiable to others and intolerable to myself.

My dreams were at once more fantastic and agreeable than my writings.

Elegance is inferior to virtue.

All men hate the wretched; how, then, must I be hated, who am miserable beyond all living things! Yet you, my creator, detest and spurn me, thy creature, to whom thou art bound by ties only dissoluble by the annihilation of one of us.

My dreams were all my own; I accounted them to nobody; They were my refuge when annoyed - my dearest pleasure when free.

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.

Even broken in spirit as he is, no one can feel more deeply than he does the beauties of nature. The starry sky, the sea, and every sight afforded by these wonderful regions, seems still to have the power of elevating his soul from earth. Such a man has a double existence: he may suffer misery, and be overwhelmed by disappointments; yet, when he has retired into himself, he will be like a celestial spirit that has a halo around him, within whose circle no grief or folly ventures.

How dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge and how much happier that man is who believes his native town to be the world, than he who aspires to be greater than his nature will allow.

The beginning is always today.

How mutable are our feelings, and how strange is that clinging love we have of life even in the excess of misery!

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

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.

When falsehood can look so like the truth, who can assure themselves of certain happiness?

I was benevolent and good; misery made me a fiend. Make me happy, and I shall again be virtuous.

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.

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.

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 force of reality.

Satan has his companions, fellow-devils, to admire and encourage him; but I am solitary and detested.

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

With how many things are we on the brink of becoming acquainted, if cowardice or carelessness did not restrain our inquiries.

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 world was to me a secret which I desired to devine.