Top 380 Mary Shelley Quotes (2026 Update)
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301. “My uncle had an idea of his being educated as an advocate, that through his interest he might become a judge. But, besides that he is not at all fitted for such an occupation, it is certainly more creditable to cultivate the earth for the sustenance of man, than to be the confidant, and sometimes the accomplice, of his vices; which is the profession of a lawyer.”

— Mary Shelley

302. “There was a sense of justice in my father’s upright mind which rendered it necessary that he should approve highly to love strongly.”

— Mary Shelley

303. “It had been the mere plaything of nature, when first it crept out of uncreative void into light; but thought brought forth power and knowledge; and, clad with these, the race of man assumed dignity and authority. It was then no longer the mere gardener of earth, or the shepherd of her flocks; “it carried with it an imposing and majestic aspect; it had a pedigree and illustrious ancestors; it had its gallery of portraits, its monumental inscriptions, its records and titles.”

— Mary Shelley

304. “I, like the arch-fiend, bore a hell within me, and finding myself unsympathized with, wished to tear up the trees, spread havoc and destruction around me, and then to have sat down and enjoyed the ruin.”

— Mary Shelley

305. “The guilty are allowed, by human laws, bloody as they may be, to speak in their own defence before they are condemned. Listen to me, Frankenstein. You accuse me of murder; and yet you would, with a satisfied conscience, destroy your own creature.”

— Mary Shelley

306. “Our lives will not be happy, but they will be harmless, and free from the misery I now feel. Oh! my creator, make me happy; let me feel gratitude towards you for one benefit!”

— Mary Shelley

307. “Remember, that I am thy creature: I ought to be thy Adam; but I am rather the fallen angel, whom thou drivest from joy for no misdeed.”

— Mary Shelley

308. “This breeze, which has travelled from the regions towards which I am advancing, gives me a foretaste of those icy climes. Inspirited by this wind of promise, my day dreams become more fervent and vivid. I try in vain to be persuaded that the pole is the seat of frost and desolation; it ever presents itself to my imagination as the region of beauty and delight. There, Margaret, the sun is for ever visible; its broad disk just skirting the horizon, and diffusing a perpetual splendour.”

— Mary Shelley

309. “The words induced me to turn towards myself. I learned that the possessions most esteemed by your fellow creatures were high and unsullied descent united with riches. A man might be respected with only one of these advantages, but without either he was considered, except in very rare instances. as a vagabond and a slave, doomed to waste his powers for the profits of the chosen few!”

— Mary Shelley

310. “One by one, her brothers and sister died; and her mother, with the exception of her neglected daughter, was left childless. The conscience of the woman was troubled; she began to think that the deaths of her favourites was a judgement from heaven to chastise her partiality. She was a Roman.”

— Mary Shelley

311. “I feel a cold northern breeze play upon my cheeks, which braces my nerves and fills me with delight. Do you understand this feeling? This breeze, which has traveled from the regions towards which I am advancing, gives me a foretaste of those icy climes. Inspirited by this wind of promise, my daydreams become more fervent and vivid.”

— Mary Shelley

312. “I delighted in investigating the facts relative to the actual world; she busied herself in following the aerial creations of the poets. The world was to me a secret, which I desired to discover; to her it was a vacancy, which she sought to people with imaginations of her own.”

— Mary Shelley

313. “You must create a female for me with whom I can live in the interchange of those sympathies necessary for my being. This you alone can do, and I demand it of you as a right which you must not refuse to concede.”

— Mary Shelley

314. “For while I destroyed his hopes, I did not satisfy my own desires. They were for ever ardent and craving; still I desired love and fellowship, and I was still spurned.”

— Mary Shelley

315. “During this conversation I had retired to a corner of the prison-room, where I could conceal the horrid anguish that possessed me. Despair! Who dared talked of that? The poor victim, who on the morrow was to pass the dreary boundary between life and death, felt not as I did, such deep and bitter agony.”

— Mary Shelley

316. “Unfeeling, heartless creator! You had endowed me with perceptions and passions, and then cast me abroad an object for the scorn and horror of mankind.”

— Mary Shelley

317. “I saw how the worm inherited the wonders of the eye and brain.”

— Mary Shelley

318. “You hate me; but your abhorrence cannot equal that with which I regard myself. I look on the hands which executed the deed; I think on the heart in which the imagination of it was conceived, and long for the moment when they will meet my eyes, when it haunt my thoughts, no more.”

— Mary Shelley

319. “I shall die. I shall no longer feel the agonies which now consume me, or be the prey of feelings unsatisfied, yet unquenched. He is dead who called me into being; and when I shall be no more, the very remembrance of us both will speedily vanish. I shall no longer see the sun or stars, or feel the winds play on my cheeks. Light, feeling, and sense, will pass away; and in this condition must I find my happiness.”

— Mary Shelley

320. “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

321. “All my speculations and hopes are as nothing; and, like the archangel who aspired to omnipotence, I am chained in an eternal hell.”

— Mary Shelley

322. “I swear to you, by the earth which I inhabit, and by you that made me, that, with the companion you bestow, I will quit the neighbourhood of man, and dwell, as it may chance, in the most savage of places.”

— Mary Shelley

323. “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

324. “I shall relate events that impressed me with feelings which, from what I had been, have made me what I am.”

— Mary Shelley

325. “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

326. “To be a great and virtuous man appeared the highest honour that can befall a sensitive being; to be base and vicious, as many on record have been, appeared the lowest degradation, a condition more abject than that of the blind mole or harmless worm. For a long time I could not conceive how one man could go forth to murder his fellow, or even why there were laws and governments; but when I heard details of vice and bloodshed, my wonder ceased, and I turned away with disgust and loathing.”

— Mary Shelley

327. “During the day I was sustained and inspirited by the hope of night: for in sleep I saw my friends, my wife, and my beloved country; again I saw the benevolent countenance of my father, heard the silver tones of my Elizabeth’s voice, and beheld Clerval enjoying health and.”

— Mary Shelley

328. “I desire the company of a man who could sympathize with me; whose eyes would reply to mine. You may deem me romantic, my dear sister, but I bitterly feel the want of a friend.”

— Mary Shelley

329. “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 Shelley

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

— Mary Shelley

331. “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

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

— Mary Shelley

333. “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

334. “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

335. “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

336. “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

337. “I postponed this attempt for some months longer; for the importance attached to its success inspired me with a dread lest I shall fail.”

— Mary Shelley

338. “The tranquillity which I now enjoyed did not endure. Memory brought madness with it; and.”

— Mary Shelley

339. “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

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

— Mary Shelley

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

— Mary Shelley

342. “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

343. “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

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

— Mary Shelley

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

— Mary Shelley

346. “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

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

— Mary Shelley

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

— Mary Shelley

349. “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

350. “Why cannot human language express human thoughts? And how is it that there is a feeling inspired by the excess of beauty, which laps the heart in a gentle but eager flame, which may inspire virtue and love, but the feeling is far too intense for expression?”

— Mary Shelley