Mary Shelley Quotes

There was a considerable difference between the ages of my parents, but this circumstance seemed to unite them only closer in bonds of devoted affection.

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

Life, although it may only be an accumulation of anguish, is dear to me, and I will defend it.

No man chooses evil because it is evil; he only mistakes it for happiness, the good he seeks.

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.

Seek happiness in tranquility and avoid ambition even if it be only the apparently innocent one of distinguishing yourself in science and discoveries.

One as deformed and horrible as myself, could not deny herself to me. My companion must be of the same species, and have the same defects... with whom I can live in the interchange of those sympathies necessary for my being...

I do not ever remember to have trembled at a tale of superstition or to have feared the apparition of a spirit. Darkness had no effect upon my fancy, and a churchyard was to me merely the receptacle of bodies deprived of life, which, from being the seat of beauty and strength, had become food for the worm.

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 contributes so much to tranquilize the mind as a steady purpose

My education was neglected, yet I was passionately fond of reading.

The labours of men of genius, however erroneously directed, scarcely ever fail in ultimately turning to the solid advantage of mankind.

In other studies you go as far as other have gone before you, and there is nothing more to know; but in a scientific pursuit there is continual food for discovery and wonder.

What is there so fearful as the expectation of evil tidings delayed? ... Misery is a more welcome visitant when she comes in her darkest guise and wraps us in perpetual black, for then the heart no longer sickens with disappointed hope.

- The Evil Eye

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

The spirit of elder days found a dwelling here, and we delighted to trace its footsteps.

What did this mean? Who was I? What was I? Whence did I come? What was my destination?

Oh, come to me in dreams, my love!
I will not ask a dearer bliss;
Come with the starry beams, my love,
And press mine eyelids with thy kiss.

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

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