Nothing contributes so much to tranquillize the mind as a steady purpose- a point on which the soul can focus its intellectual eye

What can stop the determined heart and resolved will of man?

I love man as my fellow; but his scepter, real, or usurped, extends not to me, unless the reason of an individual demands my homage; and even then the submission is to reason, and not to man.

I am not a person of opinions because I feel the counter arguments too strongly.

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.

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.

Her countenance was all expression; her eyes were not dark but impenetrably deep; you seemed to discover space after space in their intellectual glance.

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 sympathize with me, whose eyes would reply to mine.

Unhappy man! Do you share my maddness? Have you drunk also of the intoxicating draught? Hear me; let me reveal my tale, and you will dash the cup from your lips!

We are fashioned creatures, but half made up.

One wondering thought pollutes the day

Oh! Stars and clouds and winds, ye are all about to mock me; if ye really pity me, crush sensation and memory; let me become as nought; but if not, depart, depart, and leave me in darkness.

Seek happiness in tranquility and avoid ambition even if it be only the apparently innocent one of distinguishing yourself in science and discoveries.

He was soon borne away by the waves and lost in darkness and distance.

I beheld the wretch-the miserable monster whom I had created.

Polluted by crimes, and torn by the bitterest remorse, where can I find rest but in death?

We never do what we wish when we wish it, and when we desire a thing earnestly, and it does arrive, that or we are changed, so that we slide from the summit of our wishes and find ourselves where we were.

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.

In other studies you go as far as other have gone before you, and there is nothing more to know; but in a scientific pursuit there is continual food for discovery and wonder.

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.

But soon, I shall die, and what I now feel be no longer felt. Soon these burning miseries will be extinct.

Devil, do you dare approach me? and do you not fear the fierce vengeance of my arm wreaked on your miserable head?

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 very winds whispered in soothing accents, and maternal Nature bade me weep no more.

Evil thenceforth became my good.

Life and death appeared to me ideal bounds, which I should first break through, and pour a torrent of light into our dark world.

I looked upon the sea, it was to be my grave

I spread the whole earth out as a map before me. On no one spot of its surface could I put my finger and say, here is safety.

He is dead who called me into being, and when I shall be no more the very remembrance of us both will speedily vanish.

My own mind began to grow, watchful with anxoius thoughts.

I saw no cause for their unhappiness, but I was deeply affected by it. If such lovely creatures were miserable, it was less strange that I, an imperfect and solitary being, should be wretched.

In my joy I thrust my hand into the live embers, but quickly drew it out with a cry of pain. How strange, I thought that the same cause should produce such opposite effects.

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.

The name of Italy has magic in its very syllables.

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!

You accuse me of murder; and yet you would, with a satisfied conscience, destroy your own creature. Oh, Praise the eternal justice of man!

Perfect happiness is an attribute of angels; and those who have it, appear angelic

How many things are we upon the brink of discovering if cowardice or carelessness did not restrain our inquiries

What is there in our nature that is for ever urging us on towards pain and misery?

All men hate the wretched.

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.

He seems to feel his own worth, and the greatness of his fall.

I trembled, and my heart failed within me; when, on looking up, I saw, by the light of the moon, the daemon at the casement.

I was new to sorrow, but it did not the less alarm me.

I'm a creature of fine sensations

Who shall conceive the horrors of my secret toil as I dabbled among the unhallowed damps of the grave or tortured the living animal to animate the lifeless clay?

A miserable spectacle of wrecked humanity, pitiable to others and intolerable to myself.

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.