Top 380 Mary Shelley Quotes (2025 Update)
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301. “No one could better enjoy liberty, yet no one could submit with more grace than she did to constraint and caprice.”

— Mary Shelley

302. “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

303. “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

304. “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

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

— Mary Shelley

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

— Mary Shelley

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

— Mary Shelley

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

— Mary Shelley

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

— Mary Shelley

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

— Mary Shelley

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

— Mary Shelley

312. “Was my dream but a mirror of the truth?”

— Mary Shelley

313. “Oh, that some encouraging voice would answer in the affirmative! My courage and my resolution is firm; but my hopes fluctuate, and my spirits are often depressed. I am about to proceed on a long and difficult voyage, the emergencies of which will demand all my fortitude: I am required not only to raise the spirits of others, but sometimes to sustain my own, when theirs are failing.”

— Mary Shelley

314. “Los acontecimientos que influyen decisivamente en nuestros destinos a menudo tienen su origen en sucesos triviales.”

— Mary Shelley

315. “I was often tempted, when all was at peace around me, and I the only unquiet thing that wandered restless in a scene so beautiful and heavenly – if I except some bat, or the frogs, whose harsh and interrupted croaking was heard only when I approached the shore – often, I say, I was tempted to plunge into the silent lake, that the waters might close over me and my calamities forever.”

— Mary Shelley

316. “And wherefore was it glorious? Not because the way was smooth and placid as a southern sea, but because it was full of dangers and terror, because at every new incident your fortitude was to be called forth and your courage exhibited, because danger and death surrounded it, and these you were to brave and overcome. For this was it a glorious, for this was it an honourable undertaking.”

— Mary Shelley

317. “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

318. “You are in the wrong,” replied the fiend; “and, instead of threatening, I am content to reason with you.”

— Mary Shelley

319. “Every thought that was devoted to it was an extreme anguish, and every word that I spoke in allusion to it caused my lips to quiver, and my heart to palpitate.”

— Mary Shelley

320. “Some weeks before this period I had procured a sledge and dogs, and thus traversed the snows with inconceivable speed.”

— Mary Shelley

321. “Remember that am they creature, I ought to be thy Adam, but am rather the fallen Angel.”

— Mary Shelley

322. “It was with these feelings that I began the creation of a human being.”

— Mary Shelley

323. “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

324. “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

325. “A human being in perfection ought.”

— Mary Shelley

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

— Mary Shelley

327. “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

328. “I read and studied the wild fancies of these writers with delight; they appeared to me treasures known to few besides myself.”

— Mary Shelley

329. “My protectors had departed, and had broken the only link that held me to the world. For the first time the feelings of revenge and hatred filled my bosom, and I did not strive to control them; but, allowing myself to be borne away by the stream, I bent my mind towards injury and death.”

— Mary Shelley

330. “If the study to which you apply yourself has a tendency to weaken.”

— Mary Shelley

331. “Learn from me, dear lady, to submit in patience to the will of heaven!”

— Mary Shelley

332. “I have consented to return, if we are not destroyed. Thus are my hopes blasted by cowardice and indecision; I come back ignorant and disappointed. It requires more philosophy than I possess, to bear this injustice with patience.”

— Mary Shelley

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

— Mary Shelley

334. “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

335. “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

336. “The wretch saw me destroy the creature on whose future existence he depended for happiness, and, with.”

— Mary Shelley

337. “Me has dado sentimientos y pasiones, pero me has abandonado al desprecio y al asco de la humanidad.”

— Mary Shelley

338. “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

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

— Mary Shelley

340. “Sometimes the peasants, scared by this horrid apparition, informed me of his path; sometimes he himself, who feared that if I lost all trace I should despair and die, often left some mark to guide me.”

— Mary Shelley

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

— Mary Shelley

342. “Revenge! – the word seemed balm to me; I hugged it, caressed it, till, like a serpent, it stung me.”

— Mary Shelley

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

— Mary Shelley

344. “After days and nights of incredible labour and fatigue, I succeeded in discovering the cause of generation and life; nay, more, I.”

— Mary Shelley

345. “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

346. “Si el estudio al cual uno se entrega tiene una tendencia a debilitar los afectos y a destruir el gusto que se tiene por esos sencillos placeres en los cuales nada debe interferir, entonces esa disciplina es con toda seguridad perjudicial, es decir, impropia de la mente humana.”

— Mary Shelley

347. “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

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

— Mary Shelley

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

— Mary Shelley

350. “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