Top 380 Mary Shelley Quotes (2024 Update)
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251. “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

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

— Mary Shelley

253. “I am alone and miserable: man will not associate with me; but one as deformed and horrible as myself would not deny herself to me. My companion must be of the same species and have the same defects. This being you must create.”

— Mary Shelley

254. “My dear Victor, do not speak thus. Heavy misfortunes have befallen us; but let us only cling closer to what remains, and transfer our love for those whom we have lost to those who yet live. Our circle will be small, but bound close by the ties of affection and mutual misfortune. And when time shall have softened your despair, new and dear objects of care will be born to replace those of whom we have been so cruelly deprived.”

— Mary Shelley

255. “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

256. “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

257. “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

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

— Mary Shelley

259. “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

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

— Mary Shelley

261. “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

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

— Mary Shelley

263. “Prepare! your toils only begin: wrap yourself in furs, and provide food, for we shall soon enter upon a journey where your sufferings will satisfy my everlasting hatred.”

— Mary Shelley

264. “My life might have been passed in ease and luxury; but I preferred glory to every enticement that wealth placed in my path.”

— Mary Shelley

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

— Mary Shelley

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

— Mary Shelley

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

— Mary Shelley

268. “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

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

— Mary Shelley

270. “Then the appearance of death was distant, although the wish was ever present to my thoughts, and I often sat for hours motionless and speechless, wishing for some mighty revolution that might bury me and my destroyer in its ruins.”

— Mary Shelley

271. “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

272. “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

273. “These reflections have dispelled the agitation with which I began my letter and I feel my heart glow with an enthusiasm whcih elevates me to heaven, for nothing contributes so much to tranqualize the mind as a steady purpose – a point on which the soul may fix its intellectual eye.”

— Mary Shelley

274. “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

275. “But I have one want which I have never yet been able to satisfy; and the absence of the object of which I now feel as a most severe evil. I have no friend, Margaret: when I am glowing with the enthusiasm of success, there will be none to participate my joy; if I am assailed by disappointment, no one will endeavour to sustain me in dejection.”

— Mary Shelley

276. “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

277. “On every point of general literature he displays unbounded knowledge, and a quick and piercing apprehension. His eloquence is forcible and touching;.”

— Mary Shelley

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

— Mary Shelley

279. “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

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

— Mary Shelley

281. “Accursed creator! Why did you form a monster so hideous that even you turned from me in disgust? God, in pity, made man beautiful and alluring, after his own image; but my form is a filthy type of yours, more horrid even from the very resemblance. Satan had his companions, fellow devils, to admire and encourage him, but I am solitary and abhorred.”

— Mary Shelley

282. “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

283. “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

284. “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

285. “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

286. “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

287. “Was man, indeed, at once so powerful, so virtuous, and magnificent, yet so viscious and base? He appeared at one time a mere scion of evil principle and at another as all that can be conceived as noble and godlike.”

— Mary Shelley

288. “I desire the company of a man who could sympathise with me; whose eyes would reply to mine.”

— Mary Shelley

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

— Mary Shelley

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

— Mary Shelley

291. “Clerval desired the intercourse of the men.”

— Mary Shelley

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

— Mary Shelley

293. “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

294. “A human being in perfection ought.”

— Mary Shelley

295. “Frightful the storm which embraced the gallant vessel on its course and wrecked it-thus!”

— Mary Shelley

296. “My heart, which was before sorrowful, now swelled with something like joy;.”

— Mary Shelley

297. “En tiempos de desgracias debemos luchar contra nuestros destinos y esforzarnos por que estos no nos venzan.”

— Mary Shelley

298. “My own spirits were high, and I bounded along with feelings of unbridled joy and hilarity.”

— Mary Shelley

299. “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

300. “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