30 quotes
We are unfashioned creatures, but half made up, if one wiser, better, dearer than ourselves — such a friend ought to be — do not lend his aid to perfectionate our weak and faulty natures.
Frankenstein (1818)
All judges had rather that ten innocent should suffer than that one guilty should escape.
Frankenstein (1818)
Seek happiness in tranquility and avoid ambition even if it be only the apparently innocent one of distinguishing yourself in science and discoveries.
I feel my heart glow with an enthusiasm which elevates me to heaven, for nothing contributes so much to tranquilize the mind as a steady purpose — a point on which the soul may fix its intellectual eye.
Frankenstein (1818)
You, who call Frankenstein your friend, seem to have a knowledge of my crimes and his misfortunes.
Frankenstein (1818)
Satan had his companions, fellow devils, to admire and encourage him, but I am solitary and abhorred.
Frankenstein (1818)
The moon gazed on my midnight labours, while, with unrelaxed and breathless eagerness, I pursued nature to her hiding-places.
Frankenstein (1818)
Live, and be happy, and make others so.
Frankenstein (1818)
Music—the language of the immortals, disclosed to us as testimony of their existence...
The Last Man (1826)
There he lies, white and cold in death. You hate me, but your abhorrence cannot equal that with which I regard myself.
Frankenstein (1818)
No one can conceive the variety of feelings which bore me onwards, like a hurricane, in the first enthusiasm of success. Life and death appeared to me ideal bounds, which I should first break through, and pour a torrent of light into our dark world.
Frankenstein (1818)
I am an unfortunate and deserted creature, I look around and I have no relation or friend upon earth. These amiable people to whom I go have never seen me and know little of me. I am full of fears, for if I fail there, I am an outcast in the world forever.
Frankenstein (1818)
What terrified me will terrify others; and I need only describe the spectre which had haunted my midnight pillow.
I am content to suffer alone while my sufferings shall endure; when I die, I am well satisfied that abhorrence and opprobrium should load my memory.
Frankenstein (1818)
The last man! Yes I may well describe that solitary being's feelings, feeling myself as the last relic of a beloved race, my companions extinct before me...
I have good dispositions; my life has been hitherto harmless and in some degree beneficial; but a fatal prejudice clouds their eyes, and where they ought to see a feeling and kind friend, they behold only a detestable monster.
Frankenstein (1818)
My spirit will sleep in peace, or if it thinks, it will not surely think thus. Farewell.
Frankenstein (1818)
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.
Frankenstein (1818)
One thing I will add: if I have ever found kindness, it has not been from Liberals; to disengage myself from them was the first act of my freedom.
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.
The Last Man (1826)