“Man,” I cried, “how ignorant art thou in thy pride of wisdom!” – Mary Shelley Frankenstein, Chapter 23. Victor Frankenstein curses the magistrate and all humanity.
He seems to feel his own worth, and the greatness of his fall. – Mary Shelley Frankenstein, Chapter 23. Walton on Victor.
“Learn my miseries and do not seek to increase your own.” – Mary Shelley Frankenstein, Chapter 24. A regretful Victor Frankenstein cautions Walton to learn from his mistakes.
“The companions of our childhood always possess a certain power over our minds which hardly any later friend can obtain.” – Mary Shelley Frankenstein, Chapter 24. Victor Frankenstein to Walton.
“Be men, or be more than men. Be steady to your purposes and firm as a rock. This ice is not made of such stuff as your hearts may be; it is mutable and cannot withstand you if you say that it shall not.” – Mary Shelley Frankenstein, Chapter 24. Victor Frankenstein to ship’s crew.
“Seek happiness in tranquility, and avoid ambition, even if it be only the apparently innocent one of distinguishing yourself in science and discoveries.” – Mary Shelley Frankenstein, Chapter 24. Victor to Walton, as he reflects on his mistakes and his reckless ambition.
“My heart was fashioned to be susceptible of love and sympathy, and when wrenched by misery to vice and hatred, it did not endure the violence of the change without torture such as you cannot even imagine.” – Mary Shelley Frankenstein, Chapter 24. The monster to Robert Walton, at the deathbed of Victor on the ship.
“I, the miserable and the abandoned, am an abortion, to be spurned at, and kicked, and trampled on.” – Mary Shelley Frankenstein, Chapter 24. The monster, speking to Walton, questions the injustice of how he has been treated.
“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 Frankenstein, Chapter 24. In the light of his creator Victor’s death, the monster resigns himself to his own death too.
“Polluted by crimes, and torn by the bitterest remorse, where can I find rest but in death?” – Mary Shelley Frankenstein, Chapter 24. The monster.
“Soon I shall die, and what I now feel be no longer felt. Soon these burning miseries will be extinct. I shall ascend my funeral pile triumphantly and exult in the agony of the torturing flames. The light of that conflagration will fade away; my ashes will be swept into the sea by the winds. My spirit will sleep in peace, or if it thinks, it will not surely think thus. Farewell.” – Mary Shelley Frankenstein, Chapter 24. The monster’s final words to Robert Walton, before jumping onto an ice-raft to be “soon borne away by the waves and lost in darkness and distance.”
What terrified me will terrify others; and I need only describe the spectre which had haunted my midnight pillow. – 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
Life and death appeared to me ideal bounds, which I should first break through, and pour a torrent of light into our dark world. – Mary Shelley
The very winds whispered in soothing accents, and maternal Nature bade me weep no more. – Mary Shelley
The agony of my feelings allowed me no respite; no incident occurred from which my rage and misery could not extract its food. – Mary Shelley
And now, once again, I bid my hideous progeny go forth and prosper. I have an affection for it, for it was the offspring of happy days, when death and grief were but words, which found no true echo in my heart. – 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
Teach him to think for himself? Oh, my God, teach him rather to think like other people! – Mary Shelley
I am very averse to bringing myself forward in print, but as my account will only appear as an appendage to a former production, and as it will be confined to such topics as have connection with my authorship alone, I can hardly accuse myself of a personal intrusion. – Mary Shelley
It is hardly surprising that women concentrate on the way they look instead of what is in their minds since not much has been put in their minds to begin with. – Mary Shelley
Invention, it must be humbly admitted, does not consist in creating out of void, but out of chaos. – Mary Shelley
A king is always a king – and a woman always a woman: his authority and her sex ever stand between them and rational converse. – 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