Mary Shelley quotes - page 2

Mary Shelley was an English novelist best known for writing "Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus." Her work laid the foundation for science fiction and explores themes of creation and responsibility. She remains an influential figure in literature and continues to inspire readers and writers around the world. Here are 113 of her quotes:

The world to me was 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

When falsehood can look so like the truth, who can assure themselves of certain happiness?

Mary Shelley

How mutable are our feelings, and how strange is that clinging love we have of life even in the excess of misery!

Mary Shelley

The whole series of my life appeared to me as a dream; I sometimes doubted if indeed it were all true, for it never presented itself to my mind with the force of reality.

Mary Shelley

With how many things are we on the brink of becoming acquainted, if cowardice or carelessness did not restrain our inquiries.

Mary Shelley

once I falsely hoped to meet the beings who, pardoning my outward form, would love me for the excellent qualities which I was capable of unfolding.

Mary Shelley

Man," I cried, "how ignorant art thou in thy pride of wisdom!

Mary Shelley

Solitude was my only consolation - deep, dark, deathlike solitude.

Mary Shelley

I could not understand why men who knew all about good and evil could hate and kill each other.

Mary Shelley

A mind of moderate capacity which closely pursues one study must infallibly arrive at great proficiency in that study.

Mary Shelley

The labours of men of genius, however erroneously directed, scarcely ever fail in ultimately turning to the solid advantage of mankind.

Mary Shelley

Accursed creator! Why did you form a monster so hideous that even you turned from me in disgust?

Mary Shelley

A truce to philosophy! - Life is before me and I rush into possession. Hope, glory, love, and blameless ambition are my guides, and my soul knows no dread.

Mary Shelley

No man chooses evil because it is evil; he only mistakes it for happiness, the good he seeks.

Mary Shelley

If our impulses were confined to hunger, thirst, and desire, we might be nearly free; but now we are moved by every wind that blows and a chance word or scene that that word may convey to us.

Mary Shelley

It may... be judged indecent in me to come forward on this occasion; but when I see a fellow-creature about to perish through the cowardice of her pretended friends, I wish to be allowed to speak, that I may say what I know of her character.

Mary Shelley

learn from my miseries, and do not seek to increase your own.

Mary Shelley

Listen to me, Frankenstein. You accuse me of murder; and yet you would, with a satisfied conscience, destroy your own creature. Oh, praise the eternal justice of man!

Mary Shelley

I was benevolent and good; misery made me a fiend. Make me happy, and I shall again be virtuous.

Mary Shelley

The fallen angel becomes a malignant devil. Yet even that enemy of God and man had friends and associates in his desolation; I am alone.

Mary Shelley

The world was to me a secret which I desired to devine.

Mary Shelley

It is true, we shall be monsters, cut off from all the world; but on that account we shall be more attached to one another.

Mary Shelley