325 Quotes by Mary Shelley

Have I not suffered enough, that you seek to increase my misery?

For the first time she knew and loved the Spirit of good and beauty, an affinity to which affords the greatest bliss that our nature can receive.

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

What is there in our nature that is for ever urging us on towards pain and misery?

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.

It was on a dreary night of November that I beheld the accomplishment of my toils.

Dark-eyed, dark-haired, with smiles of enchanting archness and a step like a fawn—

But in truth, neither the lonely meditations of the hermit nor the turmulos raptures of the reveller, are capable of satisfying man’s heart. From the one we gather unquiet speculation, from the other satiety. The mind flags beneath the weight of thought, and droops in thee heartless intercourse of those whose sole aim is amusement. There is no fruition in their vacant kindness, and sharp rocs lur beneath the smiling ripples of these shallow waters.

We have one unerring guide...Call it love, charity, or sympathy; it is the best, the angelic portion of us. It teaches us to feel pain at others pain, joy in their joy. The more entirely we mingle our emotions with those of others, making our well or ill being depend on theirs, the more completely do we cast away our selfishness, and approach the perfection of our nature.