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There is something at work in my soul which I do not understand. I am practically industrious — painstaking, a workman to execute with perseverance and labour — but besides this there is a love for the marvellous, a belief in the marvellous, intertwined in all my projects, which hurries me out of the common pathways of men, even to the wild sea and unvisited regions I am about to explore.

— Mary Shelley Frankenstein (1818)

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More quotes by Mary Shelley

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)

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Mary Shelley (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.