I also became a poet, and for one year lived in a Paradise of my own creation; I imagined that I also might obtain a niche in the temple where the names of Homer and Shakespeare are consecrated. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley More Quotes by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley More Quotes From Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley 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. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley communication eye men Nothing is more painful to the human mind than, after the feelings have been worked up by a quick succession of events, the dead calmness of inaction and certainty which follows and deprives the soul both of hope and fear. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley soul mind feelings One as deformed and horrible as myself, could not deny herself to me. My companion must be of the same species, and have the same defects... with whom I can live in the interchange of those sympathies necessary for my being. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley companion horrible deny Seek happiness in tranquility and avoid ambition even if it be only the apparently innocent one of distinguishing yourself in science and discoveries. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley tranquility ambition discovery 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 Wollstonecraft Shelley angel men enemy Invention, it must be humbly admitted, does not consist in creating out of a 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. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley creating dark writing 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 Wollstonecraft Shelley identity men life Why did I not die? More miserable than man ever was before, why did I not sink into forgetfulness and rest? Death snatches away many blooming children, the only hopes of their doting parents: how many brides and youthful lovers have been one day in the bloom of health and hope, and the next a prey for worms and the decay of the tomb! Of what materials was I made, that I could thus resist so many shocks, which, like the turning of the wheel, continually renewed the torture? But I was doomed to live. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley parent men children It was the secrets of heaven and earth that I desired to learn. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley heaven science knowledge I saw -- with shut eyes, but acute mental vision -- I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together. I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, and then, on the working of some powerful engine, show signs of life, and stir with an uneasy, half-vital motion. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley powerful eye art When I run over the frightful catalogue of my sins, I cannot believe that I am the same creature whose thoughts were once filled with sublime and transcendent visions of the beauty and the majesty of goodness. But it is even so; the fallen angel becomes a malignant devil. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley angel running believe But he found that a traveller's life is one that includes much pain amidst its enjoyments. His feelings are for ever on the stretch; and when he begins to sink into repose, he finds himself obliged to quit that on which he rests in pleasure for something new, which again engages his attention, and which also he forsakes for other novelties. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley pain feelings attention Look forward to future years, if not with eager anticipation, yet with a calm reliance upon the power of good, wholly remote from despair. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley despair looks years For a moment my soul was elevated from its debasing and miserable fears to which these sights were the monuments and the remembrances. For an instant I dared to shake off my chains, and look around me with a free and lofty spirit; but the iron had eaten into my flesh, and I sank again, trembling and hopeless, into my miserable self. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley iron self sight 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 Wollstonecraft Shelley murder justice men I beheld the wretch-the miserable monster whom I had created. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley miserable creation monsters Oh! grief is fantastic; it weaves a web on which to trace the history of its woe from every form and change around; it incorporates itself with all living nature; it finds sustenance in every object; as light, it fills all things, and, like light, it gives its own colors to all. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley color grief light I am malicious because I am miserable Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley malicious miserable The modern masters promise very little Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley modern littles promise Sorrow only increased with knowledge. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley sorrow
