Quotes from Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

If misfortune come against us we must fight with her; we must cast her aside, and still go on to find out that which it is our nature to desire.

I too can create desolation

Un ésser humà perfecte hauria de conservar sempre la ment en calma i en pau, i no permetre's mai que la passió o un desig transitori li destorbin la tranquil·litat. No crec pas que la persecució del saber sigui cap excepció a aquesta regla.

cal que els que sobreviuen [a un mort] refrenin l'augment de l'afliccio que una immoderada demostració de pena podria dur (...)

Life was then brilliant; I began to learn to hope and what brigs a more bitter despair to the heart than hope destroyed?

I look on the hands which executed the deed; I think on the heart in which the imagination of it was conceived, and long for the moment when these hands will meet my eyes, when that imagination will haunt my thoughts no more.

És cert que serem monstres, separats de tot el món; però per això mateix ens sentirem més units l'un a l'altre.

I lived in a desolate country where there were none to praise and very few to love.

None knew of their love except their own two hearts...

La muerte siega la vida de muchos niños, única promesa de sus amantes padres. ¿Cuántas novias hay y cuántos jóvenes enamorados que, radiantes un día de salud y esperanzas, son al día siguiente pasto de los gusanos? ¿De qué material estaría hecho yo para poder resistir tantos golpes que, como el girar de una rueda, renovaban continuamente mi tortura?

I wandered for ever about these lovely solitudes, gathering flower after flower

Jo estava fet per a una felicitat reposada.

Però la venjança m'ha mantingut viu: no gosava morir i deixar viu el meu adversari.

Miro las manos que jecutaron los crímenes... pienso en el espíritu que los proyectó y ansío que llegue el momento en que esas manos cubran mis ojos, en que ese espíritu no piense más. [...] Así hallaré mi felicidad.

Sometimes when I had planned the next morning for my escape a word of more than usual affection from her lips made me postpone my resolution. I reproached myself bitterly for what I called a culpable weakness; but this weakness returned upon me whenever the critical moment approached, and I never found courage to depart.

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

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

I was required to exchange chimeras of boundless grandeur for realities of little worth

how much happier is that man who believes his native town to be the world, than he who aspires to become so greater than his nature will allow

there is something at work in my soul, which I do not understand

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.

The sunset and the gentle moon, the blessed motion of the leaves and the murmuring of waters are all sweet physicians to a distempered mind. The soul is expanded and drinks in quiet, a lulling medicine – to me it was as the sight of the lovely water snakes to the bewitched mariner – in loving and blessing Nature I unawares, called down a blessing on my own soul.

Then the appearance of death was distant, although the wish was ever present to my thoughts, and I often sat for hours motionless and speechless, wishing for some mighty revolution that might bury me and my destroyer in its ruins.

Ed eccomi infatti adesso con la vecchia storia di scriverti che vorrei dirti buonanotte invece di scrivertelo e, sì, è una storia che si è fatta ormai davvero vecchia, ma spero che questo sia il suo ultimo capitolo. (I miei sogni mi appartengono: Lettere della donna che reinventò la paura)