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 Wollstonecraft Shelley More Quotes by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley More Quotes From Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Of what a strange nature is knowledge! It clings to a mind when it has once seized on it like a lichen on a rock." - Frankenstein p115 Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley rocks leadership knowledge Our feelings probably are not less strong at fifty than they were ten or fifteen years before; but they have changed their objects, and dwell on far different prospects. At five-and-thirty a man thinks of what his own existence is; when the maturity of age has grown into its autumn, he is wrapt up in that of others. The loss of wife or child then becomes more deplorable, as being impossible to repair; for no fresh connection can give us back the companion of our earlier years, nor a "new-sprung race" compensate for that, whose career we hoped to see run. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley strong running children But soon, I shall die, and what I now feel be no longer felt. Soon these burning miseries will be extinct. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley burning misery feels The air of fashion, which many young people are so eager to attain, always strikes me like the studied attitudes of some modern prints, copied with tasteless servility after the antigue; the soul is left out, and none of the parts are tied together by what may properly be termed character. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley fashion attitude character 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 Wollstonecraft Shelley solve destination mean It was very different when the masters of science sought immortality and power; such views, although futile, were grand: but now the scene was changed. The ambition of the inquirer seemed to limit itself to the annihilation of those visions on which my interest in science was chiefly founded. I was required to exchange chimeras of boundless grandeur for realities of little worth. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley ambition views reality What terrified me will terrify others; and I need only describe the spectre which had haunted my midnight pillow. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley scary midnight needs I do know that for the sympathy of one living being, I would make peace with all. I have love in me the likes of which you can scarcely imagine and rage the likes of which you would not believe. If I cannot satisfy the one, I will indulge the other. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley imagine likes believe 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. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley crush stars memories From my infancy I was imbued with high hopes and a lofty ambition. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley lofty infancy ambition ...learn from my miseries, and do not seek to increase your own. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley increase misery We are fashioned creatures, but half made up. - Victor Frankenstein Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley creatures half made 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! Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley grief dream heart He was soon borne away by the waves and lost in darkness and distance. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley wave distance darkness We could almost believe that we are destined by Providence to an unsettled position on the globe, so invariably is a love of change implanted in the young. It seems as if the eternal Lawgiver intended that, at a certain age, man should leave father, mother, and the dwelling of his infancy, to seek his fortunes over the wide world. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley mother believe father I cherished hope, it is true, but it vanished when my person reflected . . . Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley persons Our faults are apt to assume giant and exaggerated forms to our eyes in youth. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley faults giants eye 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 Wollstonecraft Shelley solitude half long There is something so different in Venice from any other place in the world, that you leave at once all accustomed habits and everyday sights to enter an enchanted garden. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley venice garden sight Satan has his companions, fellow-devils, to admire and encourage him; but I am solitary and detested. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley admire satan devil
