Quotes from Mary Shelley

Death! mysterious, ill-visaged friend of weak humanity! Why alone of all mortals have you cast me from your sheltering fold? Oh, for the peace of the grave! the deep silence of the iron-bound tomb! that thought would cease to work in my brain, and my heart beat no more with emotions varied only by new forms of sadness!

I am satisfied: miserable wretch! you have determined to live, and I am satisfied.

Alas! he is cold, he cannot answer me.

Am I to be thought the only criminal, when all humankind sinned against me?

Que extraña cosa el conocimiento! Una vez que ha penetrado en la mente, se aferra a ella como la hiedra a la roca.

The blood flowed freely in my veins, but a weight of despair and remorse pressed on my heart, which nothing could remove.

I required kindness and sympathy, but I did not believe myself utterly unworthy of it.

Increase of knowledge only discovered to me more clearly what a wretched outcast I was.

My present situation was one in which all voluntary thought was swallowed up and lost.

At these moments I took refuge in the most perfect solitude. I passed whole days on the lake alone in a little boat, watching the clouds, and listening to the rippling of the waves, silent and listless.

Learn from me, if not by my precepts, at least by my example, 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 become greater than his nature will allow. When

I was a shattered wreck,--the shadow of a human being.

Have I not suffered enough, that you seek to increase my misery?

I cannot tell you how I loathe talking about myself.

I can offer you no consolation, my friend, said he; your disaster is irreparable. What do you intend to do?

Mis vicios sólo son el fruto de tan forzosa y aborrecida soledad. Mis virtudes, por el contrario, se desarrollarán naturalmente cuando tenga a mi lado el afecto de otra criatura. Los sentimientos cariñosos de mi compañera me transformarán y, así, podré incorporarme al hermoso ciclo universal del que ahora estoy tan cruelmente excluido.

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.

We are unfashioned creatures, but half made up...

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.

I leave a sad and bitter world; and if you remember me, and think of me as of one unjustly condemned, I am resigned to the fate awaiting me.

For the first time, also, I felt what the duties of a creator toward his creature were, and that i ought to render him happy before I complained of his wickedness.

I had rather be with you, he said, in your solitary rambles, than with these Scotch people, whom I do not know: hasten then, my dear friend, to return, that I may again feel myself somewhat at home, which I cannot do in your absence.

The sun might shine or the clouds might lower, but nothing could appear to me as it had done the day before.

You will rejoice to hear that no disaster has accompanied the commencement of an enterprise which you have regarded with such evil forebodings. I arrived here yesterday, and my first task is to assure my dear sister of my welfare and increasing confidence in the success of my undertaking.