Mary Shelly > Quotes

“Am I to be thought the only criminal, when all human kind sinned against me?”
― Mary Shelly, Frankenstein

“I allowed my thoughts, unchecked by reason, to ramble in the fields of Paradise, and dared to fancy amiable and lovely creatures sympathizing with my feelings and cheering you gloom…But it was all a dream: no Eve soothed my sorrows nor shared my thoughts; I was alone.”
― Mary Shelly , Frankenstein

“my feelings became calmer, if it may be called calmness when the violence of rage sinks into the depths of despair”
― Mary Shelly, Frankenstein

“Do not waste your time upon this; it is sad trash.”
― Mary Shelly, Frankenstein

“My heart yearned to be known and loved by these amiable creatures; to see their sweet looks directed towards me with affection was the utmost limit of my ambition. I dared not think that they would turn them from me with disdain and horror.”
― Mary Shelly, Frankenstein

“And where does he now exist? is this gentle and lovely being lost for ever? Has this mind, so replete with ideas, imaginations fanciful and magnificent, which formed a world, whose existence depended on the life of its creator - has the mind perished? Does it now only exist in my memory? No, it is not thus; your form so divinely wrought, and beaming with beauty, has decayed, but your spirit still visits and consoles your unhappy friend.”
― Mary Shelly, Frankenstein: The Modern Prometheus

“Beware; for I am fearless, and therefore powerful.”
― Mary Shelly, Frankenstein: The 1818 Text

“I had desired it with an ardour that far exceeded moderation; but now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart.”
― Mary Shelly, Frankenstein

“Slave, I before reasoned with you, but you have proved yourself unworthy of my condescension. Remember that I have power; you believe yourself miserable, but I can make you so wretched that the light of day will be hateful to you. You are my creator, but I am your master--obey!”
― Mary Shelly, Frankenstein: The 1818 Text

“When I placed my head upon my pillow, sleep crept over me; I felt it as it came and blessed the giver of oblivion.”
― Mary Shelly, Frankenstein: The 1818 Text

“The companions of our childhood always possess a certain power over our minds, which hardly any later friend can obtain”
― Mary Shelly, Frankenstein: The 1818 Text

“It was a strong effort of the spirit of good; but it was ineffectual. Destiny was too potent, and her immutable laws had decreed my utter and terrible destruction”
― Mary Shelly, Frankenstein: or, the Modern Prometheus

“Life, although it may only be an accumulation of anguish, is dear to me, and I will defend it.”
― Mary Shelly, Frankenstein

“I recollected my threat and resolved that it should be accomplished. I knew that I was preparing for myself a deadly torture; but I was the slave, not the master, of an impulse which I detested, yet could not disobey. Yet when she died!—nay, then I was not miserable. I had cast off all feeling, subdued all anguish, to riot in the excess of my despair. Evil thenceforth became my good. Urged thus far, I had no choice but to adapt my nature to an element which I had willingly chosen. The completion of my demoniacal design became an insatiable passion. And now it is ended; there is my last victim!”
― Mary Shelly, Frankenstein; Or, The Modern Prometheus

“. If our impulses were confined to hunger, thirst, and desire, we might be nearly free; but now we are moved by every wind that blows and a chance word or scene that that word may convey to us.

We rest; a dream has power to poison sleep. We rise; one wand'ring thought pollutes the day. We feel, conceive, or reason; laugh or weep, Embrace fond woe, or cast our cares away; It is the same: for, be it joy or sorrow, The path of its departure still is free. Man's yesterday may ne'er be like his morrow; Nought may endure but mutability!”
― Mary Shelly, Frankenstein

“I was benevolent and good; misery made me a fiend.”
― Mary Shelly, Frankenstein

“My possessions are at your service,' I replied bitterly-'my poverty, my exile, my disgrace I make a free gift of them all.”
― Mary Shelly

“”
― Mary Shelly, Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus

“I thought and pondered -- vainly. I felt that blank incapability of invention which is the greatest misery of authorship, when dull Nothing replies to our anxious invocations,”
― Mary Shelly, Frankenstein

“Accursed creator! Why did you form a monster so hideous that even you turned from me in disgust?”
― Mary Shelly, Frankenstein

“What do you mean? What do you demand of your captain? Are you, then, so easily turned from your design? Did you not call this a glorious expedition? “And wherefore was it glorious? Not because the way was smooth and placid as a southern sea, but because it was full of dangers and terror, because at every new incident your fortitude was to be called forth and your courage exhibited, because danger and death surrounded it, and these you were to brave and overcome. For this was it a glorious, for this was it an honourable undertaking. You were hereafter to be hailed as the benefactors of your species, your names adored as belonging to brave men who encountered death for honour and the benefit of mankind. And now, behold, with the first imagination of danger, or, if you will, the first mighty and terrific trial of your courage, you shrink away and are content to be handed down as men who had not strength enough to endure cold and peril; and so, poor souls, they were chilly and returned to their warm firesides. Why, that requires not this preparation; ye need not have come thus far and dragged your captain to the shame of a defeat merely to prove yourselves cowards. Oh! Be men, or be more than men. Be steady to your purposes and firm as a rock. This ice is not made of such stuff as your hearts may be; it is mutable and cannot withstand you if you say that it shall not. Do not return to your families with the stigma of disgrace marked on your brows. Return as heroes who have fought and conquered and who know not what it is to turn their backs on the foe.”
― Mary Shelly, Frankenstein: The 1818 Text

“Was man, indeed, at once so powerful, so virtuous, and magnificent, yet so vicious and base?”
― Mary Shelly, Frankenstein: The 1818 Text

“Chance- or rather the evil influence, the Angel of Destruction, which asserted omnipotent sway over me from the moment I turned my reluctant steps from my father's door-”
― Mary Shelly, Frankenstein: The 1818 Text

“Περιπλανώμενα πνεύματα, εάν στ’ αλήθεια περιπλανιέστε και δεν μένετε στα στενά σας κρεβάτια, επιτρέψτε μου να νιώσω αυτή την φευγαλέα ευτυχία, ή πάρτε με μαζί σας μακριά απ’ τις χαρές της ζωής.”
― Mary Shelly, Frankenstein: The 1818 Text

“I asked, it is true, for greater treasures than a little food or rest: I required kindness and sympathy; but I did not believe myself utterly unworthy of it.”
― Mary Shelly, Frankenstein: The 1818 Text

“You will rejoice to hear that no disaster has accompanied the commencement of an enterprise which you have regarded with such evil forebodings.”
― Mary Shelly, Frankenstein

“You will smile at my allusion; but I will disclose a secret. I have often attributed my attachment to, my passionate enthusiasm for, the dangerous mysteries of ocean, to that production of the most imaginative of modern poets. There is something at work in my soul, which I do not understand. I am practically industrious - painstaking; a workman to execute with perseverance and belief in the marvelous, intertwined in all my projects, which hurries me out of the common pathways of men, even to the wild sea and unvisited regions I am about to explore.”
― Mary Shelly, Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus (Annotated, Large Print)

“it is well for the unfortunate to be resigned, but for the guilty there is no peace. The agonies of remorse poison the luxury there is otherwise found in indulging the excess of grief.”
― Mary Shelly, Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus (Annotated, Large Print)

“Every thing must have a beginning, to speak in Sanchean phrase; and that beginning must be linked to something that went before. The Hindus give the world an elephant to support it, but they make the elephant stand upon a tortoise. Invention, it must be humbly admitted, does not consist in creating out of void, but out of chaos; the material must, in the first place, be afforded: it can give form to dark, shapeless substances, but cannot bring into being the substance itself. In all matters of discovery and invention, even of those that appertain to the imagination, we are continually reminded of the story of Columbus and his egg. Invention consists in the capacity of seizing on the capabilities of a subject; and in power of moulding and fashioning ideas suggested to it.”
― Mary Shelly, Frankenstein

“Poor William! That dear child; he now sleeps with his angel mother. His friends mourn and weep, but he is at rest: he does not now feel the murderer's grasp; a sod covers his gentle form, and he knows no pain. He can no longer be a fit subject for pity; the survivors are the greatest sufferers and for them time is the only consolation. Those maxims of the Stoics, that death was no evil, and that the mind of man ought to be superior to despair on the eternal absence of a beloved object, ought not to be urged. Even Cato wept over the dead body of his brother.”
― Mary Shelly, Frankenstein (Annotated): Part-I, Part- II and Part- III