Frankenstein

Nothing is so painful to the human mind as a great and sudden change.

Beware; for I am fearless, and therefore powerful.

Life, although it may only be an accumulation of anguish, is dear to me, and I will defend it.

I do know that for the sympathy of one living being, I would make peace with all. I have love in me the likes of which you can scarcely imagine and rage the likes of which you would not believe. If I cannot satisfy the one, I will indulge the other.

If I cannot inspire love, I will cause fear!

There is something at work in my soul, which I do not understand.

I ought to be thy Adam, but I am rather the fallen angel...

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.

the companions of our childhood always possess a certain power over our minds which hardly any later friend can obtain.

The world to me was a secret, which I desired to discover; to her it was a vacancy, which she sought to people with imaginations of her own.

There is love in me the likes of which you've never seen. There is rage in me the likes of which should never escape. If I am not satisfied int he one, I will indulge the other.

When falsehood can look so like the truth, who can assure themselves of certain happiness?

How mutable are our feelings, and how strange is that clinging love we have of life even in the excess of misery!

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.

Man," I cried, "how ignorant art thou in thy pride of wisdom!

With how many things are we on the brink of becoming acquainted, if cowardice or carelessness did not restrain our inquiries.

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.

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!

Thus strangely are our souls constructed, and by slight ligaments are we bound to prosperity and ruin.

I was benevolent and good; misery made me a fiend. Make me happy, and I shall again be virtuous.

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.

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.

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.' - Frankenstein

The world was to me a secret which I desired to devine.

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.

I am alone and miserable. Only someone as ugly as I am could love me.

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.

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.

It was the secrets of heaven and earth that I desired to learn; and whether it was the outward substance of things or the inner spirit of nature and the mysterious soul of man that occupied me, still my inquiries were directed to the metaphysical, or in its highest sense, the physical secrets of the world.

I have love in me the likes of which you can scarcely imagine and rage the likes of which you would not believe. If I cannot satisfy the one, I will indulge the other.

... the companions of our childhood always possess a certain power over our minds which hardly any later friend can obtain.

I could not understand why men who knew all about good and evil could hate and kill each other.

I am malicious because I am miserable