Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Quotes - Page 2

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

The young are always in extremes.

Elegance is inferior to virtue.

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

Invention, it must be humbly admitted, does not consist in creating out of void, but out of chaos.

Oh! Stars and clouds and winds, ye are all about to mock me; if ye really pity me, crush sensation and memory; let me become as nought; but if not, depart, depart, and leave me in darkness.

. . . the companions of our childhood always possess a certain power over our minds which hardly any later friend can obtain.

Tranquility, allied to loneliness, possessed no charms.

How dreadful it is, to emerge from the oblivion of slumber, and to receive as a good morrow the mute wailing of one's own hapless heart - to return from the land of deceptive dreams to the heavy knowledge of unchanged disaster!

Look forward to future years, if not with eager anticipation, yet with a calm reliance upon the power of good, wholly remote from despair.

Men become cannibals of their own hearts; remorse, regret, and restless impatience usurp the place of more wholesome feeling: every thing seems better than that which is.

I shall commit my thoughts to paper, it is true; but that is a poor medium for the communication of feeling. I desire the company of a man who could sympathize with me, whose eyes would reply to mine.

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. What has been, though sweet, is gone; the present is good only because it is about to change, and the to come is all my own.

It was the secrets of heaven and earth that I desired to learn; and whether it was the outward substance of things or the inner spirit of nature and the mysterious soul of man that occupied me, still my inquiries were directed to the metaphysical, or in its highest sense, the physical secrets of the world.

marriage is usually considered the grave, and not the cradle of love.

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

What can stop the determined heart and resolved will of man?

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

It is a strange feeling for a girl when first she finds the power put into her hand of influencing the destiny of another to happiness or misery. She is like a magician holding for the first time a fairy wand, not having yet had experience of its potency.

To examine the causes of life, we must first have recourse to death.

The modern masters promise very little

Devil, do you dare approach me? and do you not fear the fierce vengeance of my arm wreaked on your miserable head?

Life is obstinate and clings closest where it is most hated.

...if I see but one smile on your lips when we meet, occasioned by this or any other exertion of mine, I shall need no other happiness.

...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.