Mary Shelley Quotes

149 Sourced Quotes

Invention, it must be humbly admitted, does not consist in creating out of void, but out of chaos; the materials must, in the first place, be afforded: it can give form to dark, shapeless substances, but cannot bring into being the substance itself. In all matters of discovery and invention, even of those that appertain to the imagination, we are continually reminded of the story of Columbus and his egg. Invention consists in the capacity of seizing on the capabilities of a subject, and in the power of moulding and fashioning ideas suggested to it.

Mary Shelley
As a child I scribbled; and my favourite pastime, during the hours given me for recreation, was to "write stories." Still I had a dearer pleasure than this, which was the formation of castles in the air—the indulging in waking dreams—the following up trains of thought, which had for their subject the formation of a succession of imaginary incidents. My dreams were at once more fantastic and agreeable than my writings.

Mary Shelley
My dreams were all my own; I accounted for them to nobody; they were my refuge when annoyed — my dearest pleasure when free.

Mary Shelley
The very winds whispered in soothing accents, and maternal Nature bade me weep no more.

Mary Shelley
No one can conceive the variety of feelings which bore me onwards, like a hurricane, in the first enthusiasm of success. Life and death appeared to me ideal bounds, which I should first break through, and pour a torrent of light into our dark world. A new species would bless me as its creator and source; many happy and excellent natures would owe their being to me. No father could claim the gratitude of his child so completely as I should deserve theirs.

Mary Shelley
Teach him to think for himself? Oh, my God, teach him rather to think like other people!
On her son's education

Mary Shelley
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
But I am a blasted tree; the bolt has entered my soul; and I felt then that I should survive to exhibit what I shall soon cease to be - a miserable spectacle of wrecked humanity, pitiable to others and intolerable to myself.

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
My person was hideous and my stature gigantic. What did this mean? Who was I? What was I? Whence did I come? What was my destination? These questions continually recurred, but I was unable to solve them.

Mary Shelley
I saw and heard of none like me. Was I then a monster, a blot upon the earth, from which all men fled, and whom all men disowned?

Mary Shelley
He is dead who called me into being, and when I shall be no more the very remembrance of us both will speedily vanish.

Mary Shelley
Marriage is usually considered the grave, and not the cradle of love.

Mary Shelley
We are unfashioned creatures, but half made up, if one wiser, better, dearer than ourselves — such a friend ought to be — do not lend his aid to perfectionate our weak and faulty natures.

Mary Shelley
Curiosity, earnest research to learn the hidden laws of nature, gladness akin to rapture, as they unfolded to me, are among the earliest sensations I can remember.

Mary Shelley
None but those who have experienced them can conceive of the enticements of science.

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

Mary Shelley
Lord Byron, who was writing the third canto of Childe Harold, was the only one among us who put his thoughts upon paper. These, as he brought them successively to us, clothed in all the light and harmony of poetry, seemed to stamp as divine the glories of heaven and earth, whose influences we partook with him.

Mary Shelley
I am an unfortunate and deserted creature, I look around and I have no relation or friend upon earth. These amiable people to whom I go have never seen me and know little of me. I am full of fears, for if I fail there, I am an outcast in the world forever.

Mary Shelley
I felt emotions of gentleness and pleasure, that had long appeared dead, revive within me. Half surprised by the novelty of these sensations, I allowed myself to be borne away by them, and forgetting my solitude and deformity, dared to be happy.

Mary Shelley
Life, although it may only be an accumulation of anguish, is dear to me, and I will defend it.

Mary Shelley
Ennui, the demon, waited at the threshold of his noiseless refuge, and drove away the stirring hopes and enlivening expectations, which form the better part of life.

Mary Shelley
His science was simply human and human science, I soon convinced myself, could never conquer nature's laws so far as to imprison the soul.

Mary Shelley
I shall thus give a general answer to the question, so frequently asked me—"How I, then a young girl, came to think of, and to dilate upon, so very hideous an idea?"

Mary Shelley
I trembled, and my heart failed within me; when, on looking up, I saw, by the light of the moon, the daemon at the casement.

Mary Shelley
My candle was nearly burnt out, when, by the glimmer of the half-extinguished light, I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open.

Mary Shelley
Ah! it is well for the unfortunate to be resigned, but for the guilty there is no peace.

Mary Shelley
I beheld the wretch—the miserable monster whom I had created.

Mary Shelley
I gave her cakes, I gave her wine,
I gave her sugar-candy,
But oh! the little naughty girl,
She asked me for some brandy.

Mary Shelley
In the evening Hogg comes. I like him better each time; it is a pity that he is a lawyer; he wasted so much time on that trash that might be spent on better things.

Mary Shelley