Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Quotes

Beware; for I am fearless, and therefore powerful.

Accursed creator! Why did you form a monster so hideous that even you turned from me in disgust?

Nothing contributes so much to tranquilize the mind as a steady purpose - a point on which the soul may fix its intellectual eye.

If I cannot inspire love, I will cause fear!

You are my creator, but I am your master; Obey!

I beheld the wretch-the miserable monster whom I had created.

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

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.

Solitude was my only consolation - deep, dark, deathlike solitude.

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

Live, and be happy, and make others so.

There is love in me the likes of which you've never seen. There is rage in me the likes of which should never escape. If I am not satisfied int he one, I will indulge the other.

The fallen angel becomes a malignant devil.

The very winds whispered in soothing accents, and maternal Nature bade me weep no more.

A human being in perfection ought always to preserve a calm and peaceful mind and never to allow passion or a transitory desire to disturb his tranquility.

Men become cannibals of their own hearts; remorse, regret, and restless impatience usurp the place of more wholesome feeling: every thing seems better than that which is.

Of what a strange nature is knowledge! It clings to a mind when it has once seized on it like a lichen on a rock." - Frankenstein p115

Nothing is so painful to the human mind as a great and sudden change.

Happiness is in its highest degree the sister of goodness.

My candle was nearly burnt out, when, by the glimmer of the half-extinguished light, I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open.

What can stop the determined heart and resolved will of man?

. . . the companions of our childhood always possess a certain power over our minds which hardly any later friend can obtain.

The agony of my feelings allowed me no respite; no incident occurred from which my rage and misery could not extract its food.

A solitary being is by instinct a wanderer.

You seek for knowledge and wisdom as I once did; and I ardently hope that the gratification of your wishes may not be a serpent to sting you, as mine has been.

I am very averse to bringing myself forward in print, but as my account will only appear as an appendage to a former production, and as it will be confined to such topics as have connection with my authorship alone, I can hardly accuse myself of a personal intrusion.

A mind of moderate capacity which closely pursues one study must infallibly arrive at great proficiency in that study.

The young are always in extremes.

Elegance is inferior to virtue.

A truce to philosophy!—Life is before me, and I rush into possession. Hope, glory, love, and blameless ambition are my guides, and my soul knows no dread. What has been, though sweet, is gone; the present is good only because it is about to change, and the to come is all my own.

What terrified me will terrify others; and I need only describe the spectre which had haunted my midnight pillow.

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

The instructor can scarcely give sensibility where it is essentially wanting, nor talent to the unpercipient block. But he can cultivate and direct the affections of the pupil, who puts forth, as a parasite, tendrils by which to cling, not knowing to what - to a supporter or a destroyer.

Every where I see bliss, from which I alone am irrevocably excluded.

I feel exquisite pleasure in dwelling on the recollections of childhood, before misfortune had tainted my mind, and changed its bright visions of extensive usefulness into gloomy and narrow reflections upon self.

The moon gazed on my midnight labours, while, with unrelaxed and breathless eagerness, I pursued nature to her hiding places.

...once I falsely hoped to meet the beings who, pardoning my outward form, would love me for the excellent qualities which I was capable of unfolding.

I collected the instruments of life around me, that I might infuse a spark of being into the lifeless thing that lay at my feet. It was already one in the morning; the rain pattered dismally against the panes, and my candle was nearly burnt out, when, by the glimmer of the half-extinguished light, I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open; it breathed hard, and a convulsive motion agitated its limbs.

Her countenance was all expression; her eyes were not dark but impenetrably deep; you seemed to discover space after space in their intellectual glance.

Life is obstinate and clings closest where it is most hated.

Invention, it must be humbly admitted, does not consist in creating out of void, but out of chaos.

I see by your eagerness, and the wonder and hope which your eyes express, my friend, that you expect to be in formed of the secret with which I am acquainted. That cannot be.

Women are told from their infancy, and taught by the example of their mothers, that a little knowledge of human weakness, justly termed cunning, softness of temper, outward obedience and a scrupulous attention to a puerile kind of propriety, will obtain for them the protection of man.

I also became a poet, and for one year lived in a Paradise of my own creation; I imagined that I also might obtain a niche in the temple where the names of Homer and Shakespeare are consecrated.

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.

...if I see but one smile on your lips when we meet, occasioned by this or any other exertion of mine, I shall need no other happiness.

Devil, do you dare approach me? and do you not fear the fierce vengeance of my arm wreaked on your miserable head?

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.

I am alone and miserable. Only someone as ugly as I am could love me.

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