Top 380 Mary Shelley Quotes (2026 Update)
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251. “Why did I live? Why, in that instant, did I not extinguish the spark of existence which you had so wantonly bestowed? I know not; despair had not yet taken possession of me; my feelings were those of rage and revenge. I could with pleasure have destroyed the cottage and its inhabitants, and have glutted myself with their shrieks and misery.”

— Mary Shelley

252. “My proud step was no interpreter of my heart, for I deeply felt that, though surrounded by every luxury, I was a beggar.”

— Mary Shelley

253. “This is thy funeral, this thy dirge!”

— Mary Shelley

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

— Mary Shelley

255. “I have longed for a friend; I have sought one who would sympathise with and love me.”

— Mary Shelley

256. “This passion is detrimental to me; for you do not reflect that you are the cause of its excess.”

— Mary Shelley

257. “But power, in all its shapes, is venerable to man. Awe, curiosity, a clinging fascination, drew me towards him.”

— Mary Shelley

258. “I feel my heart glow with an enthusiasm which elevates me to heaven, for nothing contributes so much to tranquilize the mind as a steady purpose – a point on which the soul may fix its intellectual eye.”

— Mary Shelley

259. “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 Shelley

260. “I trod heaven in my thoughts, now exulting in my powers, now burning with the idea of their effects.”

— Mary Shelley

261. “Our virtues are the quicksands, which show themselves at calm and low water; but let the waves arise and the winds buffet them, and the poor devil whose hope was in their durability, finds them sink from under him.”

— Mary Shelley

262. “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.”

— Mary Shelley

263. “I took every precaution to defend my person, in case the fiend should openly attack me. I carried pistols and a dagger constantly about me, and was ever on the watch to prevent artifice; and by these means gained a greater degree of tranquillity.”

— Mary Shelley

264. “Why did I not die? More miserable than man ever was before, why did I not sink into forgetfulness and rest? Death snatches away many blooming children, the only hopes of their doating parents: how many brides and youthful lovers have been one day in the bloom of health and hope, and the next a prey for worms and the decay of the tomb! Of what materials was I made, that I could thus resist so many shocks, which, like the turning of the wheel, continually renewed the torture.”

— Mary Shelley

265. “What was I? The question again recurred, to be answered only with groans.”

— Mary Shelley

266. “These reflections determined me, and I resolved to remain silent.”

— Mary Shelley

267. “After a slight repose, during which the spirits of the dead hovered round, and instigated me to toil and revenge, I prepared for my journey.”

— Mary Shelley

268. “We placed his remains under a cypress, the upright mountain being scooped out to receive them. And then Clara said, ‘If you wish me to live, take me from hence. There is something in this scene of transcendent beauty, in these trees, and hills and waves, that for ever whisper to me, leave thy cumbrous flesh, and make a part of us. I earnestly entreat you to take me away.”

— Mary Shelley

269. “It was very different, when the masters of the science sought immortality and power; such views, although futile, were grand: but now the scene was changed. The ambition of the inquirer seemed to limit itself to the annihilation of those visions on which my interest in science was chiefly founded. I was required to exchange chimeras of boundless grandeur for realities of little worth.”

— Mary Shelley

270. “I would reconcile him to life, but he repulses the idea.”

— Mary Shelley

271. “I who had before clothed myself in the bright garb of sincerity must now borrow one of divers colours: it might sit awkwardly at first, but use would enable me to place it in elegant folds, to lie with grace.”

— Mary Shelley

272. “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.”

— Mary Shelley

273. “And to my young heart the idea of death came for the first time blended with that of joy.”

— Mary Shelley

274. “The monster continued to utter wild and incoherent self-reproaches.”

— Mary Shelley

275. “Believe me, if you beheld on lips with grief one smile of joy and gratitude, and knew that you were parent of that smile and that without you it had never been, you would feel so pure and warm a happiness that you’d wish to live forever again and again to enjoy the same pleasure.”

— Mary Shelley

276. “He turned on hearing a noise, and perceiving me, shrieked loudly, and quitting the hut, ran across the fields with a speed of which his debilitated form hardly appeared capable.”

— Mary Shelley

277. “But I journey towards England, and I may there find consolation.”

— Mary Shelley

278. “You have suffered a land-, I a sea-wreck.”

— Mary Shelley

279. “My warm affections finding no return... were forced to run waste on inanimate objects.”

— Mary Shelley

280. “I indeed perceptibly gained on it; and when, after nearly two days’ journey, I beheld my enemy at no more than a mile distant, my heart bounded within me.”

— Mary Shelley

281. “I was a solitary being, and from my infant years, ever since my dear nurse left me, I had been a dreamer.”

— Mary Shelley

282. “He lost no time in endeavouring to seek him out, with the hope of persuading him to begin the world again.”

— Mary Shelley

283. “His power and threats were not omitted in my calculations:.”

— Mary Shelley

284. “They desired, therefore, that I should engage with a solemn promise, that if the vessel should be freed, I would instantly direct my course southward.”

— Mary Shelley

285. “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.”

— Mary Shelley

286. “It is so long before the mind can persuade itself that she, whom we saw every day, and whose very existence appeared a part of our own, can have departed for ever – that the brightness of a beloved eye can have been extinguished, and the sound of a voice so familiar, and dear to the ear, can be hushed, never more to be heard.”

— Mary Shelley

287. “All men hate the wretched; how, then, must I be hated, who am miserable beyond all living things! Yet you, my creator, detest and spurn me, thy creature, to whom thou are bound by ties only dissoluble by the annihilation of one of us.”

— Mary Shelley

288. “Ennui, the demon, waited at the threshold of his noiseless refuge, and drove away the stirring hopes and enlivening expectations, which form the better part of life.”

— Mary Shelley

289. “Standing armies can never consist of resolute robust men; they may be well-disciplined machines, but they will seldom contain men under the influence of strong passions, or with very vigorous faculties.”

— Mary Shelley

Featured in: Strong Quotes

290. “I shall commit my thoughts to paper, it is true; but that is a poor medium for the communication of feeling. I desire the company of a man who could sympathize with me, whose eyes would reply to mine.”

— Mary Shelley

291. “I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open; it breathed hard, and a convulsive motion agitated its limbs.”

— Mary Shelley

292. “Like Adam, I was created apparently united by no link to any other being in existence; but his state was far different from mine in every other respect.”

— Mary Shelley

293. “I had admired the perfect forms of my cottagers – their grace, beauty, and delicate complexions: but how was I terrified, when I viewed myself in a transparent pool! At first I started back, unable to believe that it was indeed I who was reflected in the mirror; and when I became fully convinced that I was in reality the monster that I am, I was filled with the bitterest sensations of despondence and mortification. Alas! I did not yet entirely know the fatal effects of this miserable deformity.”

— Mary Shelley

294. “Happiness is in its highest degree the sister of goodness.”

— Mary Shelley

295. “I had resolved in my own mind, that to create another like the fiend I had first made would be an act of the basest and most atrocious selfishness; and I banished from my mind every thought that could lead to a different conclusion.”

— Mary Shelley

296. “My feelings became calmer, if it may be called calmness when the violence of rage sinks into the depths of despair.”

— Mary Shelley

297. “I was like the Arabian who had been buried with the dead, and found a passage to life aided only by one glimmering, and seemingly ineffectual, light.”

— Mary Shelley

298. “What is there in our nature that is for ever urging us on towards pain and misery? We are not formed for enjoyment; and, however we may be attuned to the reception of pleasureable emotion, disappointment is the never-failing pilot of our life’s bark, and ruthlessly carries us on to the shoals.”

— Mary Shelley

299. “Remember, I am not recording the vision of a madman. The sun does not more certainly shine in the heavens, than that which I now affirm is true. Some miracle might have produced it, yet the stages of the discovery were distinct and probable. After days and nights of incredible labour and fatigue, I succeeded in discovering the cause of generation and life, nay, more; I became myself capable of bestowing animation upon lifeless matter.”

— Mary Shelley

300. “I have ten thousand florins a year without Greek, I eat heartily without Greek.”

— Mary Shelley