Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley, is about a scientist named Victor Frankenstein.
Victor discovers how to create life and gives life to a powerful but hideous being. He regrets his creation, and the monster escapes.
Rejected by his creator, the monster learns about humans by observing a family.
This family rejects the monster, and he decides to take revenge against his creator.
The monster gives Frankenstein an ultimatum: create a wife for him, or he’ll kill everyone he loves.
Frankenstein feels sorry for the lonely monster and wants to protect his family. But will he unleash another monster in the world to save himself?
Frankenstein Quotes Volume I: Letters
“Nothing contributes so much to tranquillize the mind as a steady purpose- a point on which the soul can focus its intellectual eye”
~Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, (Character: Robert Walton), Volume 1, Page 8
“My education was neglected, yet I was passionately fond of reading.”
~Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, (Character: Robert Walton), Volume 1, Page 8
“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 Shelley, Frankenstein, (Character: Robert Walton), Volume 1, Page 8
“My life might have been passed in ease and luxury, but I preferred glory to every enticement that wealth placed in my path. Oh, that some encouraging voice would answer in the affirmative! My courage and my resolution is firm; but my hopes fluctuate, and my spirits are often depressed. I am about to proceed on a long and difficult voyage, the emergencies of which will demand all my fortitude: I am required not only to raise the spirits of others, but sometimes to sustain my own, when theirs are failing.”
~Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, (Character: Robert Walton), Volume 1, Page 9
“But I have one want which I have never yet been able to satisfy; and the absence of the object of which I now feel as a most severe evil. I have no friend, Margaret: when I am glowing with the enthusiasm of success, there will be none to participate my joy; if I am assailed by disappointment, no one will endeavour to sustain me in dejection. 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 sympathise with me; whose eyes would reply to mine. You may deem me romantic, my dear sister, but I bitterly feel the want of a friend. I have no one near me, gentle yet courageous, possessed of a cultivated as well as of a capacious mind, whose tastes are like my own, to approve or amend my plans. How would such a friend repair the faults of your poor brother!”
~Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, (Character: Robert Walton), Volume 1, Page 11
“Even broken in spirit as he is, no one can feel more deeply than he does the beauties of nature. The starry sky, the sea, and every sight afforded by these wonderful regions, seems still to have the power of elevating his soul from earth. Such a man has a double existence: he may suffer misery, and be overwhelmed by disappointments; yet, when he has retired into himself, he will be like a celestial spirit that has a halo around him, within whose circle no grief or folly ventures.”
~Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, (Character: Robert Walton), Volume 1, Page 18
“I agree with you,” replied the stranger; “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. I once had a friend, the most noble of human creatures, and am entitled, therefore, to judge respecting friendship. You have hope, and the world before you, and have no cause for despair. But I — I have lost everything, and cannot begin life anew.”
~Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, (Character: Victor Frankenstein), Volume 1, Page 19
Need more Victor quotes? I’ve written another article:
“The world was to me a secret, which I desired to discover; to her it was a vacancy, which she sought to people with imaginations of her own.”
~Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, (Character: Victor Frankenstein as the narrator), Volume 1, Chapter 1, Page 26
“I feel pleasure in dwelling on the recollections of childhood, before misfortune had tainted my mind, and changed its bright visions of extensive usefulness into gloomy and narrow reflections upon self.”
~Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, (Character: Victor Frankenstein as narrator), Volume 1, Chapter 1, Page 27
“I need not describe the feelings of those whose dearest ties are rent by that most irreparable evil, the void that presents itself to the soul, and the despair that is exhibited on the countenance. It is so long before the mind can persuade itself that she whom we saw every day and whose very existence appeared a part of our own can have departed forever—that the brightness of a beloved eye can have been extinguished and the sound of a voice so familiar and dear to the ear can be hushed, never more to be heard. These are the reflections of the first days; but when the lapse of time proves the reality of the evil, then the actual bitterness of grief commences. Yet from whom has not that rude hand rent away some dear connection? And why should I describe a sorrow which all have felt, and must feel? The time at length arrives when grief is rather an indulgence than a necessity; and the smile that plays upon the lips, although it may be deemed a sacrilege, is not banished. My mother was dead, but we had still duties which we ought to perform; we must continue our course with the rest and learn to think ourselves fortunate whilst one remains whom the spoiler has not seized.”
~Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, (Character: Victor Frankenstein as narrator), Volume 1, Chapter 2, Page 32
“I threw myself into the chaise that was to convey me away and indulged in the most melancholy reflections. I, who had ever been surrounded by amiable companions, continually engaged in endeavouring to bestow mutual pleasure—I was now alone. In the university whither I was going I must form my own friends and be my own protector. My life had hitherto been remarkably secluded and domestic, and this had given me invincible repugnance to new countenances. I loved my brothers, Elizabeth, and Clerval; these were “old familiar faces,” but I believed myself totally unfitted for the company of strangers. Such were my reflections as I commenced my journey; but as I proceeded, my spirits and hopes rose. I ardently desired the acquisition of knowledge. I had often, when at home, thought it hard to remain during my youth cooped up in one place and had longed to enter the world and take my station among other human beings. Now my desires were complied with, and it would, indeed, have been folly to repent.”
~Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, (Character: Victor Frankenstein as narrator), Volume 1, Chapter 2, Page 33
“It was very different when the masters of science sought immortality and power; such views, although futile, were grand: but now the scene was changed. The ambition of the inquirer seemed to limit itself to the annihilation of those visions on which my interest in science was chiefly founded. I was required to exchange chimeras of boundless grandeur for realities of little worth.”
~Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, (Character: Victor Frankenstein as narrator), Volume 1, Chapter 2, Pages 34, 35
“A man would make but a very sorry chemist if he attended to that department of human knowledge alone.”
~Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, (Character: M. Waldman), Chapter 2, Volume 1, Page 36
“None but those who have experienced them can conceive of the enticements of science. In other studies you go as far as others have gone before you, but in a scientific pursuit there is continual food for discovery and wonder.”
~Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, (Character: Victor Frankenstein as narrator), Volume 1, Chapter 3, Page 39
“With how many things are we on the brink of becoming acquainted, if cowardice or carelessness did not restrain our inquiries.”
~Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, (Character: Victor Frankenstein as narrator), Volume 1, Chapter 3, Page 39
“I do not ever remember to have trembled at a tale of superstition or to have feared the apparition of a spirit. Darkness had no effect upon my fancy, and a churchyard was to me merely the receptacle of bodies deprived of life, which, from being the seat of beauty and strength, had become food for the worm.”
~Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, (Character: Victor Frankenstein as narrator), Volume 1, Chapter 3, Page 40
“Learn from me, if not by my precepts, at least by my example, how dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge, and how much happier that man is who believes his native town to be his world, than he who aspires to become greater than his nature will allow.”
~Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, (Character: Victor Frankenstein as narrator), Volume 1, Chapter 3, Page 41
“A human being in perfection ought always to preserve a calm and peaceful mind and never to allow passion or a transitory desire to disturb his tranquility. I do not think that the pursuit of knowledge is an exception to this rule. If the study to which you apply yourself has a tendency to weaken your affections and to destroy your taste for those simple pleasures in which no alloy can possibly mix, then that study is certainly unlawful, that is to say, not befitting the human mind. If this rule were always observed; if no man allowed any pursuit whatsoever to interfere with the tranquillity of his domestic affections, Greece had not been enslaved, Caesar would have spared his country, America would have been discovered more gradually, and the empires of Mexico and Peru had not been destroyed.”
~Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, (Character: Victor Frankenstein as narrator), Volume 1, Chapter 3, Pages 43, 44
“The different accidents of life are not so changeable as the feelings of human nature.”
~Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, (Character: Victor Frankenstein as narrator), Volume 1, Chapter 4, Page 45
“When happy, inanimate nature had the power of bestowing on me the most delightful sensations.”
~Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, (Character: Victor Frankenstein as narrator), Volume 1, Chapter 5, Page 58
“Enter the house of mourning, my friend, but with kindness and affection for those who love you, and not with hatred for your enemies.”
~Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, (Character: Alphonse Frankenstein), Volume 1, Chapter 6, Page 62
“I contempleted the lake; the waters were placid, all around was calm and the snowy mountains… the calm and heavenly scene restored me and I continued my journey toward Geneva.”
~Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, (Character: Victor Frankenstein as narrator), Volume 1, Chapter 6, Page 63
“It may…be judged indecent in me to come forward on this occasion; but when I see a fellow-creature about to perish through the cowardice of her pretended friends, I wish to be allowed to speak, that I may say what I know of her character.”
~Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, (Character: Elizabeth Lavenza), Volume 1, Chapter 7, Page 75
“When one creature is murdered, another is immediately deprived of life in a slow torturing manner; then the executioners, their hands yet reeking with the blood of innocence, believe that they have done a great deed.”
~Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, (Character: Elizabeth Lavenza), Volume 1, Chapter 7, Page 76
“But her’s was the misery of innocence, which, like a cloud that passes over the fair moon, for a while hides, but cannot tarnish its brightness.”
~Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, (Character: Victor Frankenstein as narrator), Volume 1, Chapter 7, Page 77
Quotes From Frankenstein With Page Numbers, Volume II
“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 Shelley, Frankenstein, (Character: Victor Frankenstein as narrator), Volume II, Chapter 1, Page 81
“I shunned the face of man; all sound of joy or complacency was torture to me; solitude was my only consolation—deep, dark, death-like solitude.”
~Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, (Character: Victor Frankenstein as narrator), Volume II, Chapter 1, Page 81
“…is it not a duty to the survivors that we should refrain from augmenting their unhappiness by an appearance of immoderate grief? It is also a duty owed to yourself; for excessive sorrow prevents improvement or enjoyment, or even the discharge of daily usefulness, without which no man is fit for society.”
~Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, (Character: Alphonse Frankenstein), Volume II, Chapter 1, Page 82
“But now misery has come home, and men appear to me as monsters thirsting for each other’s blood.”
~Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, (Character: Elizabeth Lavenza), Volume II, Chapter 1, Page 83
Frankenstein Monster Quotes With Page Numbers
“When falsehood can look so like the truth, who can assure themselves of certain happiness?”
~Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, (Character: Elizabeth Lavenza), Volume II, Chapter 1, Page 84
“The sight of the awful and majestic in nature had indeed always the effect of solemnising my mind and causing me to forget the passing cares of life.”
~Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, (Character: Victor Frankenstein as narrator), Volume II, Chapter 2, Page 88
“Alas! Why does man boast of sensibilities superior to those apparent in the brute; it only renders them more necessary beings. If our impulses were confined to hunger, thirst, and desire, we might be nearly free; but now we are moved by every wind that blows and a chance word or scene that that word may convey to us.”
~Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, (Character: Victor Frankenstein as narrator), Volume II, Chapter 2, Page 88
“We rest; A dream has power to poison sleep.
We rise; One wandering thought pollutes the day.
We feel, conceive, or reason; laugh or weep,
Embrace fond woe, or cast our cares away;
It is the same: for, be it joy or sorrow,
The path of departure still is free.
Man’s yesterday may ne’er be like his morrow;
Nought may endure but mutability!”~Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, (Character: Victor Frankenstein as narrator), Volume II, Chapter 2, Page 88
“My heart, which was before sorrowful, now swelled with something like joy; I exclaimed, “Wandering spirits, if indeed ye wander, and do not rest in your narrow beds, allow me this faint happiness, or take me, as your companion, away from the joys of life.”
~Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, (Character: Victor Frankenstein as narrator), Volume II, Chapter 2, Page 89
“Devil, do you dare approach me? and do you not fear the fierce vengeance of my arm wreaked on your miserable head?”
~Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, (Character: Victor Frankenstein), Volume II, Chapter 2, Page 89
“I expected this reception. All men hate the wretched; how, then, must I be hated, who am miserable beyond all living things! Yet you, my creator, detest and spurn me, thy creature, to whom thou art bound by ties only dissoluble by the annihilation of one of us. You purpose to kill me. How dare you sport thus with life? Do your duty towards me, and I will do mine towards you and the rest of mankind. If you will comply with my conditions, I will leave them and you at peace; but if you refuse, I will glut the maw of death, until it be satiated with the blood of your remaining friends.”
~Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, (Character: Victor Frankenstein), Volume II, Chapter 2, Page 90
“I ought to be thy Adam, but I am rather the fallen angel…”
~Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, (Character: The Monster), Volume II, Chapter 2, 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), Volume II, Chapter 2, 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), Volume II, Chapter 2, 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), Volume II, Chapter 2, 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), Volume II, Chapter 3, 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), Volume II, Chapter 5, 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?”i
~Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, (Character: The Monster), Volume II, Chapter 5, 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), Volume II, Chapter 5, 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), Volume II, Chapter 7, 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), Volume II, Chapter 7, 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), Volume II, Chapter 7, 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), Volume II, Chapter 7, 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), Volume II, Chapter 7, 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), Volume II, Chapter 7, 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), Volume II, Chapter 7, 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), Volume II, Chapter 7, 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), Volume II, Chapter 8, Page 128
“Anguish and despair had penetrated into the core of my heart; I bore a hell within me, which nothing could extinguish.”
~Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, (Character: Victor Frankenstein as the narrator), Volume II, Chapter 8, 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), Volume II, Chapter 9, Page 136
“If I cannot inspire love, I will cause fear!”
~Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, (Character: The Monster), Volume II, Chapter 9, 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), Volume II, Chapter 9, 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), Volume II, Chapter 9, Page 139
Frankenstein Volume III Quotes And Page Numbers
“I have seen,” he said, “the most beautiful scenes of my own country; I have visited the lakes of Lucerne and Uri, where the snowy mountains descend almost perpendicularly to the water, casting black and impenetrable shades, which would cause a gloomy and mournful appearance, were it not for the most verdant islands that relieve the eye by their gay appearance; I have seen this lake agitated by a tempest, when the wind tore up whirlwinds of water, and gave you an idea of what the waterspout must be on the great ocean; and the waves dash with fury the base of the mountain, where the priest and his mistress were overwhelmed by an avalanche, and where their dying voices are still said to be heard amid the pauses of the nightly wind; I have seen the mountains of La Valais, and the Pays de Vaud: but this country, Victor, pleases me more than all those wonders. The mountains of Switzerland are more majestic and strange; but there is a charm in the banks of this divine river, that I never before saw equalled. Look at that castle which overhangs yon precipice; and that also on the island, almost concealed amongst the foliage of those lovely trees; and now that group of labourers coming from among their vines; and that village half hid in the recess of the mountain. Oh, surely, the spirit that inhabits and guards this place has a soul more in harmony with man than those who pile the glacier, or retire to the inaccessible peaks of the mountains of our own country. “Clerval! beloved friend! even now it delights me to record your words, and to dwell on the praise of which you are so eminently deserving. He was a being formed in the “very poetry of nature.” His wild and enthusiastic imagination was chastened by the sensibility of his heart.”
~Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, (Character: Victor Frankenstein in his letter to Clerval, Volume III, Chapter 1, Pages 150, 151
“I enjoyed this scene; and yet my enjoyment was embittered both by the memory of the past, and the anticipation of the future. I was formed for peaceful happiness. During my youthful days discontent never visited my mind; and if I was ever overcome by ennui, the sight of what is beautiful in nature, or the study of what is excellent and sublime in the productions of man, could always interest my heart, and communicate elasticity to my spirits. 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 abhorrent to myself.”
~Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, (Character: Victor Frankenstein as the narrator), Volume III, Chapter 2, Page 155
“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 Shelley, Frankenstein, (Character: Victor Frankenstein as the narrator), Volume III, Chapter 2, Page 156
“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), Volume III, Chapter 3, Page 162
“Beware; for I am fearless, and therefore powerful.”
~Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, (Character: The Monster), Volume III, Chapter 3, Page 163
“my feelings became calmer, if it may be called calmness when the violence of rage sinks into the depths of despair”
~Mary Shelly, Frankenstein, (Character: Victor Frankenstein as the narrator), Volume III, Chapter 3, Page 164
“I looked upon the sea, it was to be my grave”
~Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, (Character: Victor Frankenstein as the narrator), Volume III, Chapter 3, Page 166
“How mutable are our feelings, and how strange is that clinging love we have of life even in the excess of misery!”
~Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, (Character: Victor Frankenstein as the narrator), Volume III, Chapter 3, Page 167
“The whole series of my life appeared to me as a dream; I sometimes doubted if indeed it were all true, for it never presented itself to my mind with the force of reality.”
~Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, (Character: Victor Frankenstein as the narrator), Volume III, Chapter 4, Page 172
“The cup of life was poisoned for ever; and although the sun shone upon me, as upon the happy and gay of heart, I saw around me nothing but a dense and frightful darkness, penetrated by no light but the glimmer of two eyes that glared upon me.”
~Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, (Character: Victor Frankenstein as the narrator), Volume III, Chapter 4, Page 176
“…take me where I may forget myself, my existence, and all the world.”
~Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, (Character: Victor Frankenstein as the narrator), Volume III, Chapter 4, Page 177
“if I see but one smile on your lips when we meet, occasioned by this or any other exertion of mine, I shall need no other happiness.”
~Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, (Character: Elizabeth Lavenza in her letter to Victor), Volume III, Chapter 5, Page 182
“Heavy misfortunes have befallen us, but let us only cling closer to what remains, and transfer our love for those whom we have lost to those who yet live. Our circle will be small, but bound close by the ties of affection and mutual misfortune. And when time shall have softened your despair, new and dear objects of care will be born to replace those of whom we have been so cruelly deprived.”
~Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, (Character: Alphonse Frankenstein), Volume III, Chapter 5, Page 184
“Nothing is so painful to the human mind as a great and sudden change.”
~Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, (Character: Victor Frankenstein as the narrator), Volume III, Chapter 6, Page 191
“Man,” I cried, “how ignorant art thou in thy pride of wisdom!”
~Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, (Character: Victor Frankenstein), Volume III, Chapter 6, Page 194
“My life, as it passes thus, was indeed hateful to me, and it was during sleep alone that I could taste joy. O blessed sleep!”
~Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, (Character: Victor Frankenstein as the narrator), Volume III, Chapter 7, Page 197
“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), Volume III, Chapter 7, Page 198
“… the companions of our childhood always possess a certain power over our minds which hardly any later friend can obtain.”
~Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, (Character: Victor Frankenstein as the narrator), Volume III, Chapter 7, Page 205
“did you not call this a glorious expedition? and wherefore was it glorious? not because the way was smooth and placid as a southern sea, but because it was full of dangers and terror, because at every new incident your fortitude was to be called forth and your courage exhibited, because danger and death surrounded it, and these you were brave to overcome. for this was it a glorious , for this was it an honorable undertaking”
~Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, (Character: Victor Frankenstein), Volume III, Chapter 7, Page 207
“Oh! 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. Do not return to your families with the stigma of disgrace marked on your brows. Return as heroes who have fought and conquered, and who know not what it is to turn their backs on the foe.”
~Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, (Character: Victor Frankenstein), Volume III, Chapter 7, Page 208
“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), Volume III, Chapter 7, 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), Volume III, Chapter 7, 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), Volume III, Chapter 7, 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), Volume III, Chapter 7, 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), Volume III, Chapter 7, Page 216
Beware For I am fearless and therefore powerful. page number
This quote is on page 163 of Frankenstein by the Monster.
If I cannot inspire love I will cause fear page number
This quote is on page 137 of Frankenstein by the Monster.
I was benevolent and good Frankenstein page number
This quote is on pages 90-91 of Frankenstein by the Monster.
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