Frankenstein’s Monster quotes explore themes of isolation and revenge.
Frankenstein tells the story of Victor Frankenstein, a young scientist who creates a creature in an unorthodox experiment.
The creature, often called the “monster,” is rejected by society and turns to revenge upon his creator.
Frankenstein Book Quotes With Page Numbers
What is Frankenstein’s monster?
Frankenstein’s monster is a creature composed of dead body parts, created by Victor Frankenstein through a scientific experiment.
He was an 8-foot-tall (2.4 m) creature of hideous contrasts, with yellow skin, lustrous black hair, pearly white teeth, watery eyes, dun-white eye sockets, a shriveled complexion, and straight black lips.
It is rejected by both Victor and society at large, leading the creature to seek revenge and demand a companion. The creature befriends the De Lacey family before they discover its true identity and turn away from it.
Ultimately, Victor dies, and the creature, feeling hopeless and alone, takes his own life.
25 Frankenstein Monster Quotes With Page Numbers
“I ought to be thy Adam, but I am rather the fallen angel…”
~Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, (Character: The Monster), Page 90
“Life, although it may only be an accumulation of anguish, is dear to me, and I will defend it.”
~Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, (Character: The Monster), Page 90
“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 Shelley, Frankenstein, (Character: The Monster), Page 91
“I was benevolent and good; misery made me a fiend. Make me happy, and I shall again be virtuous.”
~Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, (Character: The Monster), Page 90-91
“Here then I retreated, and lay down, happy to have found a shelter, however miserable, from the inclemency of the season, and still more from the barbarity of man.”
~Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, (Character: The Monster), Page 97
“These wonderful narrations inspired me with strange feelings. Was man, indeed, at once so powerful, so virtuous and magnificent, yet so vicious and base? He appeared at one time a mere scion of the evil principle, and at another as all that can be conceived of noble and godlike. To be a great and virtuous man appeared the highest honour that can befall a sensitive being; to be base and vicious, as many on record have been, appeared the lowest degradation, a condition more abject than that of the blind mole or harmless worm. For a long time I could not conceive how one man could go forth to murder his fellow, or even why there were laws and governments; but when I heard details of vice and bloodshed, my wonder ceased, and I turned away with disgust and loathing.”
~Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, (Character: The Monster), Page 110
“I learned that the possessions most esteemed by your fellow-creatures were, high and unsullied descent united with riches. A man might be respected with only one of these acquisitions; but without either he was considered, except in very rare instances, as a vagabond and slave, doomed to waste his powers for the profit of the chosen few. And what was I? Of my creation and creator I was absolutely ignorant; but I knew that I possessed no money, no friends, no kind of property. I was, besides, endowed with a figure hideously deformed and loathsome; I was not even of the same nature as man. I was more agile than they, and could subsist upon coarser diet; I bore the extremes of heat and cold with less injury to my frame; my stature far exceeded their’s. When I looked around, 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 Shelley, Frankenstein, (Character: The Monster), Page 111
“Of what a strange nature is knowledge! It clings to the mind when it has once seized on it like a lichen on the rock. I wished sometimes to shake off all thought and feeling, but I learned that there was but one means to overcome the sensation of pain, and that was death — a state which I feared yet did not understand.”
~Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, (Character: The Monster), Page 111
“I can hardly describe to you the effect of these books. They produced in me an infinity of new images and feelings that sometimes raised me to ecstasy, but more frequently sunk me into the lowest dejection.”
~Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, (Character: The Monster), Page 119
“As I read, however, I applied much personally to my own feelings and condition. I found myself similar, yet at the same time strangely unlike to the beings concerning whom I read, and to whose conversation I was a listener. I sympathized with, and partly understood them, but I was unformed in mind, I was dependent on none, and related to none . . . and there was none to lament my annihilation . . . 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 Shelley, Frankenstein, (Character: The Monster), Page 120
“Plutarch taught me high thoughts; he elevated me above the wretched sphere of my own reflections, to admire and love the heroes of past ages. Many things I read surpassed my understanding and experience. I had a very confused knowledge of kingdoms, wide extents of country, mighty rivers, and boundless seas. This book developed new and mightier scenes of action. I read of men concerned in public affairs, governing or massacring their species. I felt the greatest ardour for virtue rise within me, and abhorrence for vice.”
~Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, (Character: The Monster), Page 120
“Hateful day when I received life!’ I exclaimed in agony. ‘Accursed creator! Why did you form a monster so hideous that even you turned from me in disgust? God, in pity, made man beautiful and alluring, after his own image; but my form is a filthy type of yours, more horrid even from the very resemlance. Satan had his companions, fellow-devils, to admire and encourage him; but I am solitary and abhorred.’ ”
~Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, (Character: The Monster), Page 122
“Increase of knowledge only discovered to me more clearly what a wretched outcast I was. I cherished hope, it is true, but it vanished when I beheld my person reflected in water or my shadow in the moonshine, even as that frail image and that inconstant shade.”
~Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, (Character: The Monster), Page 122
“I allowed my thoughts, unchecked by reason, to ramble in the fields of Paradise, and dared to fancy amiable and lovely creatures sympathizing with my feelings and cheering you gloom…But it was all a dream: no Eve soothed my sorrows nor shared my thoughts; I was alone.”
~Mary Shelly , Frankenstein, (Character: The Monster), Page 123
“I asked, it is true, for greater treasures than a little food or rest: I required kindness and sympathy; but I did not believe myself utterly unworthy of it”
~Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, (Character: The Monster), Page 123
“Do not despair. To be friendless is indeed to be unfortunate, but the hearts of men, when unprejudiced by any obvious self-interest, are full of brotherly love and charity.”
~Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, (Character: The Monster), Page 125
“Cursed, cursed creator! Why did I live? Why, in that instant, did I not extinguish the spark of existence which you had so wantonly bestowed?”
~Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, (Character: The Monster), Page 128
“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 Shelley, Frankenstein, (Character: The Monster), Page 136
“If I cannot inspire love, I will cause fear!”
~Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, (Character: The Monster), Page 137
“It is true, we shall be monsters, cut off from all the world; but on that account we shall be more attached to one another.”
~Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, (Character: The Monster), Page 137
“If I have no ties and no affections, hatred and vice must be my portion; the love of another will destroy the cause of my crimes, and I shall become a thing of whose existence every one will be ignorant. My vices are the children of a forced solitude that I abhor; and my virtues will necessarily arise when I live in communion with an equal. I shall feel the affections of a sensitive being, and become linked to the chain of existence and events, from which I am now excluded.”
~Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, (Character: The Monster), Page 139
“Remember that I have power; you believe yourself miserable, but I can make you so wretched that the light of day will be hateful to you. You are my creator, but I am your master;–obey!”
~Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, (Character: The Monster), Page 162
“Beware; for I am fearless, and therefore powerful.”
~Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, (Character: The Monster), Page 163
“My reign is not yet over… you live, and my power is complete. Follow me; I seek the everlasting ices of the north, where you will feel the misery of cold and frost to which I am impassive. You will find near this place, if you follow not too tardily, a dead hare; eat and be refreshed. Come on, my enemy; we have yet to wrestle for our lives; but many hard and miserable hours must you endure until that period shall arrive.”
~Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, (Character: The Monster), Page 198
“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, (Character: The Monster), Page 212
“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 Shelley, Frankenstein, (Character: The Monster), Page 214
“I have murdered the lovely and the helpless; I have strangled the innocent as they slept, and grasped to death his throat who never injured me or any other living thing. I have devoted my creator, the select specimen of all that is worthy of love and admiration among men, to misery; I have pursued him even to that irremediable ruin. There he lies, white and cold in death. You hate me; but your abhorrence cannot equal that with which I regard myself. I look on the hands which executed the deed; I think on the heart in which the imagination of it was conceived, and long for the moment when these hands will meet my eyes, when that imagination will haunt my thoughts no more.”
~Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, (Character: The Monster), Pages 214, 215
“Polluted by crimes, and torn by the bitterest remorse, where can I find rest but in death?”
~Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, (Character: The Monster), Page 215
“But soon,” he cried, with sad and solemn enthusiasm, “I shall die, and what I now feel be no longer felt. Soon these burning miseries will be extinct. I shall ascend my funeral pyre 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, (Character: The Monster), Page 216
Victor Frankenstein Quotes With Page Numbers
Frankenstein Monster quotes about love
“You must create a female for me, with whom I can live in the interchange of those sympathies necessary for my being. “
“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.”
“I allowed my thoughts, unchecked by reason, to ramble in the fields of Paradise, and dared to fancy amiable and lovely creatures sympathizing with my feelings and cheering you gloom…But it was all a dream: no Eve soothed my sorrows nor shared my thoughts; I was alone.”
~Mary Shelly, Frankenstein, (Character: The Monster), Page 123
“Do not despair. To be friendless is indeed to be unfortunate, but the hearts of men, when unprejudiced by any obvious self-interest, are full of brotherly love and charity.”
~Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, (Character: The Monster), Page 125
My vices are the children of a forced solitude that I abhor; and my virtues will necessarily arise when I live in communion with an equal. I shall feel the affections of a sensitive being, and become linked to the chain of existence and events, from which I am now excluded.”
~Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, (Character: The Monster), Page 139
“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, (Character: The Monster), Page 212
Frankenstein monster quotes about abandonment
“I ought to be thy Adam, but I am rather the fallen angel…”
~Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, (Character: The Monster), Page 90
“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 Shelley, Frankenstein, (Character: The Monster), Page 91
“Hateful day when I received life!’ I exclaimed in agony. ‘Accursed creator! Why did you form a monster so hideous that even you turned from me in disgust? God, in pity, made man beautiful and alluring, after his own image; but my form is a filthy type of yours, more horrid even from the very resemlance. Satan had his companions, fellow-devils, to admire and encourage him; but I am solitary and abhorred.’ ”
~Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, (Character: The Monster), Page 122
“Increase of knowledge only discovered to me more clearly what a wretched outcast I was. I cherished hope, it is true, but it vanished when I beheld my person reflected in water or my shadow in the moonshine, even as that frail image and that inconstant shade.”
~Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, (Character: The Monster), Page 122
“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 Shelley, Frankenstein, (Character: The Monster), Page 214
Frankenstein quotes about the monster’s appearance
“but how was I terrified when I viewed myself in a transparent pool! At first I started back, unable to believe that it was indeed I who was reflected in the mirror; and when I became fully convinced that I was in reality the monster that I am, I was filled with the bitterest sensations of despondence and mortification. Alas! I did not yet entirely know the fatal effects of this miserable deformity.”
“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?”
“I had selected his features as beautiful. Beautiful! Great God! His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes, that seemed almost of the same color as the dun white sockets in which they were set, his shrivelled complexion and straight black lips.”
“His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes, that seemed almost of the same color as the dun white sockets in which they were set, his shrivelled complexion and straight black lips.”
“I was, besides, endowed with a figure hideously deformed and loathsome; I was not even of the same nature as man. I was more agile than they, and could subsist upon coarser diet; I bore the extremes of heat and cold with less injury to my frame; my stature far exceeded theirs.”
Frankenstein monster quotes about revenge
“If I cannot inspire love, I will cause fear!”
~Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, (Character: The Monster), Page 137
“Remember that I have power; you believe yourself miserable, but I can make you so wretched that the light of day will be hateful to you. You are my creator, but I am your master;–obey!”
~Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, (Character: The Monster), Page 162
“My reign is not yet over… you live, and my power is complete. Follow me; I seek the everlasting ices of the north, where you will feel the misery of cold and frost to which I am impassive. You will find near this place, if you follow not too tardily, a dead hare; eat and be refreshed. Come on, my enemy; we have yet to wrestle for our lives; but many hard and miserable hours must you endure until that period shall arrive.”
~Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, (Character: The Monster), Page 198
“I have murdered the lovely and the helpless; I have strangled the innocent as they slept, and grasped to death his throat who never injured me or any other living thing. I have devoted my creator, the select specimen of all that is worthy of love and admiration among men, to misery; I have pursued him even to that irremediable ruin. There he lies, white and cold in death. You hate me; but your abhorrence cannot equal that with which I regard myself. I look on the hands which executed the deed; I think on the heart in which the imagination of it was conceived, and long for the moment when these hands will meet my eyes, when that imagination will haunt my thoughts no more.”
~Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, (Character: The Monster), Pages 214, 215
What does Frankenstein’s monster say?
Frankenstein’s monster expresses his sorrow and loneliness: “Why did I live? Why, in that instant, did I not extinguish the spark of existence which you had so wantonly bestowed?” He also expresses his longing for companionship, wishing he had someone like him to share his life with.
What are the creature’s famous words to Victor?
The Creature’s famous words to Victor are: “Farewell! I leave you, and in you the last of humankind whom these eyes will ever behold. Farewell, Frankenstein!” and “Cursed, cursed creator! Why did I live? Why, in that instant, did I not extinguish the spark of existence which you had so wantonly bestowed?”
What is the best quote from the monster Frankenstein?
“Life, although it may only be an accumulation of anguish, is dear to me, and I will defend it.”
What is Frankenstein’s ending quote?
“But soon,” he cried, with sad and solemn enthusiasm, “I shall die, and what I now feel be no longer felt. Soon these burning miseries will be extinct. I shall ascend my funeral pyre 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.”
Sources: