01c. 1824 ADWhat is the world, except that which we feel? Love, and hope, and delight, or sorrow and tears; these are our lives, our realities, to which we give the names of power, possession, misfortune, and death.Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley / quote ↗
02c. 1824 ADCursed, 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 Wollstonecraft Shelley / quote ↗
03c. 1824 ADSolitude was my only consolation - deep, dark, deathlike solitude.Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley / quote ↗
04c. 1824 ADAt these moments I took refuge in the most perfect solitude. I passed whole days on the lake alone in a little boat, watching the clouds, and listening to the rippling of the waves, silent and listless.Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley / quote ↗
05c. 1824 ADIt was not in her nature to stop short at half-measures, not to pause when once she had fixed her purpose. If she ever trembled on looking forward to the utter ruin she was about to encounter, her second emotion was to despise herself for such pusillanimity, and to be roused to renewed energy.Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley / quote ↗
06c. 1824 ADAccursed creator! Why did you form a monster so hideous that even you turned from me in disgust?Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley / quote ↗
07c. 1824 ADInvention, it must be humbly admitted, does not consist in creating out of void, but out of chaos; the materials must, in the first place, be afforded: it can give form to dark, shapeless substances but cannot bring into being the substance itself.Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley / quote ↗
08c. 1824 ADIncrease 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 Wollstonecraft Shelley / quote ↗
09c. 1824 ADSometimes I could cope with the sullen despair that overwhelmed me: but sometimes the whirlwind passions of my soul drove me to seek, by bodily exercise and by change of place, some relief from my intolerable sensations. It was during an access of this kind that I suddenly left my home, and bending my steps towards the near Alpine valleys, sought in the magnificence, the eternity of such scenes, to forget myself and my ephemeral, because human, sorrows.Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley / quote ↗
10c. 1824 ADRemember 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 Wollstonecraft Shelley / quote ↗
11c. 1824 ADRichard, marked for misery and defeat, acknowledged that power which sentiment possesses to exalt us—to convince us that our minds, endowed with a soaring, restless aspiration, can find no repose on earth except in love.Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley / quote ↗
12c. 1824 ADMy 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 Wollstonecraft Shelley / quote ↗
13c. 1824 ADAh! it is well for the unfortunate to be resigned, but for the guilty there is no peace.Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley / quote ↗
14c. 1824 ADThere are some souls, bright and precious, which, like gold and silver, may be subdued by the fiery trial, and yield to new moulds; but there are others, pure and solid as the diamond, which may be shivered to pieces, yet in every fragment retain their indelible characteristics.Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley / quote ↗
16c. 1824 ADWe are all each of us riddles, when unknown one to the other. The plain map of human powers and purposes, helps us not at all to thread the labyrinth each individual presents in his involution of feelings, desires and capacities; and we must resemble, in quickness of feeling, instinctive sympathy, and warm benevolence, the lovely daughter of Huntley, before we can hope to judge rightly of the good and virtuous of our fellow-creatures.Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley / quote ↗
17c. 1824 ADWas 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 Wollstonecraft Shelley / quote ↗
18c. 1824 ADI 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 Wollstonecraft Shelley / quote ↗
20c. 1824 ADThese 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 Wollstonecraft Shelley / quote ↗
21c. 1824 ADallow me now to return to the cottagers, whose story excited in me such various feelings of indignation, delight, and wonder, but which all terminated in additional love and reverence for my protectors (for so I loved, in an innocent, half painful self-deceit, to call them).Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley / quote ↗
22c. 1824 ADAll 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 Wollstonecraft Shelley / quote ↗
23c. 1824 ADThe cup of life was poisoned forever, 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 Wollstonecraft Shelley / quote ↗
24c. 1824 ADA 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.Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley / quote ↗
Painted portraitRichard Rothwell · Public domain