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Of what a strange nature is knowledge! It clings to a mind when it has once seized on it like a lichen on a rock. - Frankenstein p115

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

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Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
Strange
Knowledge
Lichen
Nature
Frankenstein
Mind
Clings
Like
Seized
Rock
Rocks
Leadership

More quotes by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

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A lofty sense of independence is, in man, the best privilege of his nature.
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
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I beheld the wretch-the miserable monster whom I had created.
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
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He was soon borne away by the waves and lost in darkness and distance.
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
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...once I falsely hoped to meet the beings who, pardoning my outward form, would love me for the excellent qualities which I was capable of unfolding.
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
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The air of fashion, which many young people are so eager to attain, always strikes me like the studied attitudes of some modern prints, copied with tasteless servility after the antigue the soul is left out, and none of the parts are tied together by what may properly be termed character.
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
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Solitude was my only consolation - deep, dark, deathlike solitude.
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
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If I cannot inspire love, I will cause fear!
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
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Even the eternal skies weep, I thought is there any shame then, that mortal man should spend himself in tears?
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
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. . . the companions of our childhood always possess a certain power over our minds which hardly any later friend can obtain.
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
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A truce to philosophy!—Life is before me, and I rush into possession. Hope, glory, love, and blameless ambition are my guides, and my soul knows no dread. What has been, though sweet, is gone the present is good only because it is about to change, and the to come is all my own.
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
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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.
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
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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 Wollstonecraft Shelley
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I could not understand why men who knew all about good and evil could hate and kill each other.
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
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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.
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
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I was benevolent and good misery made me a fiend. Make me happy, and I shall again be virtuous.
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
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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 Wollstonecraft Shelley
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Accursed creator! Why did you form a monster so hideous that even you turned from me in disgust?
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
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A solitary being is by instinct a wanderer.
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
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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.
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
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The instructor can scarcely give sensibility where it is essentially wanting, nor talent to the unpercipient block. But he can cultivate and direct the affections of the pupil, who puts forth, as a parasite, tendrils by which to cling, not knowing to what - to a supporter or a destroyer.
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley