Top 380 Mary Shelley Quotes (2025 Update)
Page 6 of 8

251. “I am, by a course of strange events, become the most miserable of mortals. Persecuted and tortured as I am and have been, can death be any evil to me?”

— Mary Shelley

252. “An open and capacious forehead gave indications of a good understanding, joined to great frankness of disposition.”

— Mary Shelley

253. “He may be innocent of the murder, but he has certainly a bad conscience.”

— Mary Shelley

254. “Sometimes I wished to express my sensations in my own mode, but the uncouth and inarticulate sounds which broke from me frightened me into silence again.”

— Mary Shelley

255. “The agonies of remorse poison the luxury there is otherwise sometimes found in indulging the excess of grief.”

— Mary Shelley

256. “Inspirited by this wind of promise, my daydreams become more fervent and vivid.”

— Mary Shelley

257. “You hate me; but your abhorrence cannot equal that with which I regard myself.”

— Mary Shelley

258. “Despondency rarely visited my heart; a high destiny seemed to bear me on, until I fell, never never again to rise.”

— Mary Shelley

259. “I have but one passion ; it swallows up every other ; it dwells with my darling books, and is fed by the treasures of beauty and wisdom which they contain.”

— Mary Shelley

260. “All men hate the wretched; how then must I be hated, who am miserable beyond all living things!”

— Mary Shelley

261. “But soon,” he cried, with sad and solemn enthusiasm, “I shall die, and what I now feel be no longer felt. Soon these burning miseries will be extinct. I shall.”

— Mary Shelley

262. “But is it not a duty to the survivors, that we should refrain from augmenting their unhappiness by an appearance of immoderate grief?”

— Mary Shelley

263. “I am full of fears; for if I fail there, I am an outcast in the world for ever.”

— Mary Shelley

264. “I am alone – quite alone – in the world – the blight of misfortune has passed over me and withered me; I know that I am about to die and I feel happy – joyous.”

— Mary Shelley

265. “Perhaps during former years he had suffered from the late-discovered unworthiness of one beloved, and so was disposed to set a greater value on tried worth.”

— Mary Shelley

266. “Once my fancy was soothed with dreams of virtue, of fame, and of enjoyment. Once I falsely hoped to meet with beings, who, pardoning my outward form, would love me for the excellent qualities which I was capable of bringing forth. I was nourished with high thoughts of honour and devotion. But now vice has degraded me beneath the meanest animal.”

— Mary Shelley

267. “Like one who, on a lonely road, Doth walk in fear and dread, And, having once turned round, walks on, And turns no more his head; Because he knows a frightful fiend Doth close behind him tread. Continuing thus, I came at length opposite to the inn at which the various diligences and carriages usually stopped.”

— Mary Shelley

268. “I will revenge my injuries: if I cannot inspire love, I will cause fear;.”

— Mary Shelley

269. “Peace, peace! learn my miseries, and do not seek to increase your own.”

— Mary Shelley

270. “Sometimes, on the very brink of certainty, I failed; yet still I clung to the hope which the next day or the next hour might realise.”

— Mary Shelley

271. “I could not sustain the horror of my situation, and when I perceived that the popular voice and the countenances of the judges had already condemned my unhappy victim, I rushed out of the court in agony. The tortures of the accused did not equal mine; she was sustained by innocence, but the fangs of remorse tore my bosom and would not forgo their hold.”

— Mary Shelley

272. “No one could better enjoy liberty, yet no one could submit with more grace than she did to constraint and caprice.”

— Mary Shelley

273. “The winter has been dreadfully severe, but the spring promises well.”

— Mary Shelley

274. “The poor victim, who on the morrow was to pass the awful boundary between life and death, felt not, as I did, such deep and bitter agony. I gnashed my teeth and ground them together, uttering a groan that came from my inmost soul.”

— Mary Shelley

275. “But revenge kept me alive; I dared not die and leave my adversary in being.”

— Mary Shelley

276. “Man,” I cried, “how ignorant art thou in thy pride of wisdom! Cease; you know not what it is you say.”

— Mary Shelley

277. “I shuddered when I thought of the possible consequences of my consent; but I felt that there was some justice in his argument.”

— Mary Shelley

278. “You travelled to seek happiness, but a fatality seems to pursue you.”

— Mary Shelley

279. “Yet he enjoys one comfort, the offspring of solitude and delirium: he believes, that, when in dreams he holds converse with his friends, and derives from that communion consolation for his miseries, or excitements to his vengeance, that they are not the creations of his fancy, but the real beings who visit him from the regions of a remote world.”

— Mary Shelley

280. “He can no longer be a fit subject for pity; the survivors are the greatest sufferers, and for them time is the only consolation.”

— Mary Shelley

281. “Monsters, says Mary, are of our own making.”

— Mary Shelley

282. “But it is even so; the fallen angel becomes a malignant devil.”

— Mary Shelley

283. “The choice is with us; let us will it, and our habitation becomes a paradise. For the will of man is omnipotent, blunting the arrows of death, soothing the bed of disease, and wiping away the tears of agony.”

— Mary Shelley

284. “The conclusion of this speech convinced my father that my ideas were deranged, and he instantly changed the subject of our conversation, and endeavoured to alter the course of my thoughts. He.”

— Mary Shelley

285. “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 seem 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.”

— Mary Shelley

286. “In an evil hour I subscribed to a lie, and now only am I truly miserable.”

— Mary Shelley

287. “I learned that there was but one means to overcome the sensation of pain, and that was death.”

— Mary Shelley

288. “Oh! be men, or be more than men. Be steady to your purposes, and firm as a rock.”

— Mary Shelley

289. “I said, that the employments of a prosperous farmer, if they were not a more honourable, they were at least a happier species of occupation than that of a judge, whose misfortune it was always to meddle with the dark side of human nature.”

— Mary Shelley

290. “I wandered for ever about these lovely solitudes, gathering flower after flower.”

— Mary Shelley

291. “So true it is, that man’s mind alone was the creator of all that was good or great to man, and that Nature herself was only his first minister.”

— Mary Shelley

292. “I came out, my morals unimproved, my hatred to my oppressors encreased tenfold. Bread and water did not tame my blood, nor solitary confinement inspire me with gentle thoughts. I was angry, impatient, miserable; my only happy hours were those during which I devised schemes of revenge... years passed on, and years only added fresh love of freedom, and contempt for all that was not as wild and rude as myself.”

— Mary Shelley

293. “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 tranquillity. I do not think that the pursuit of knowledge is an exception to this rule.”

— Mary Shelley

294. “Once my fancy was soothed with dreams of virtue, of fame, and of enjoyment. Once I falsely hoped to meet with beings, who, pardoning my outward form, would love me for the excellent qualities which I was capable of bringing forth.”

— Mary Shelley

295. “My dear Frankenstein,” exclaimed Henry, when he perceived me weep with bitterness, “are you always to be unhappy? My dear friend, what has happened?”

— Mary Shelley

296. “It seemed to me as if nothing would or could ever be known. All that had so long engaged my attention suddenly grew despicable.”

— Mary Shelley

297. “They call this retribution. Hateful name! When that word is pronounced, I know greater and more horrid punishments are going to be inflicted than the gloomiest tyrant has ever invented to satiate his utmost revenge.”

— Mary Shelley

298. “I remembered the effect that the view of the tremendous and ever-moving glacier had produced upon my mind when I first saw it. It had filled me with the sublime ecstacy that gave wings to the soul, and allowed it to soar from the obscure world to light and joy. The sight of the awful and majestic in nature had indeed always the effect of solemnizing my mind, and causing me to forget the passing cares of life.”

— Mary Shelley

299. “But I did not believe my errors to be irretrievable; and, after much consideration, I resolved to return to the cottage, seek the old man, and by my representations win him to my party.”

— Mary Shelley

300. “Intr-adevar, nimic nu ajuta mai mult la linistirea cugetului decat un tel neabatut – un punct asupra caruia sa isi poata atinti privirea ochiul sufletului.”

— Mary Shelley