Frankenstein Key Quotations

"Ever since I was condemned, my confessor has besieged me; he threatened and menaced, until I began to think that I was the monster that he said I was. He threatened excommunication and hell fire in my last moments if I continued to obdurate."

"She was no longer that happy creature who in earlier youth wandered with me on the banks of the lake, and talked ecstasy of our future prospects."

"... men appear to me as monsters thirsting for each other's blood."

"These sublime and magnificent scenes afforded me the greatest consolation that I was capable of receiving."

"The tortures of the accused did not equal mine ... the fangs of remorse tore my bosom and would not forego their hold"

"A flash of lightning illuminated the object, and discovered its shape plainly to me; its gigantic structure, and the deformity of its aspect, more hideous than belongs to humanity, instantly informed me that it was the wretch, the filthy daemon to whom I had given life."

"Sometimes I grew alarmed at the wreck I perceived I had become..."

"It was on a dreary night of November, that I beheld the accomplishment of my toils."

"... I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart."

"...I thought that I held the corpse of my dead mother in my arms..."

"... its unearthly ugliness rendered it almost too horrible for human eyes."

"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."

"... the barbarity of man."

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

"I viewed myself in the transparent pool! At first I started back, unable to believe that it was indeed I who was reflected in the mirror; and when I became fully convinced that I was in reality the monster that I am..."

"What may not be expected in a country of eternal light?"

"The guilty are allowed, by human laws, bloody as they are, to speak in their own defence before they are condemned."

"Believe me, Frankenstein: I was benevolent; my sould glowed with love and humanity; but am I not alone, miserably alone?"

"How dare you sport thus with life?"

"Have I not suffered enough, that you seek to increase my misery?"

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

"I shall satiate my ardent curiosity with the sight of a part of the world never before visited, and may tread a land never before imprinted by the foot of man"

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

"He must have been a noble creature in his better days, being even now in wreck so attractive and amiable"

"One man's life or death were but a small price to pay for the acquirement of the knowledge which I sought for the dominion I should acquire and transmit over the elemental foes of our race"

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

"Will you smile with the enthusiasm I express concerning this divine wanderer?"

"I never saw a man in so wretched condition"

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

"... ascertaining the secret of the magnet..."

"I preferred glory to every enticement that wealth placed in my path"

" 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."

"... but I bitterly feel the want of a friend"

"You seek for knowledge and wisdom, as I once did; and I ardently hope that the gratification of your wishes may not be a serpent to sting you, as mine have been."

"She presented Elizabeth to me as her promised gift, I, with childish seriousness, interpreted her words literally and looked upon Elizabeth as mine - mine to protect, love, and cherish."

"Destiny was too potent, and her immutable laws had decreed my utter and terrible destruction."

"In a scientific pursuit there is continual food for discovery and wonder."

"Whence, I often asked myself, did the principle of life proceed?"

"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 the world, than he who aspires to become greater than his nature will allow."

"A new species would bless me as its creator and source; many happy and excellent natures would owe their being to me."

"... electricity and galvanism... was at once new and astonishing to me."

"The world was to me a secret which I desired to divine."

"Wealth was an inferior object"

"No human being could have passed a happier childhood than myself. My parents were possessed by the very spirit of kindness and indulgence."

"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."

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

"When I looked around I saw and heard of none like me. Was I, a monster, a blot upon the earth from which all men fled and whom all men disowned?"

"I am alone and miserable: man will not associate with me; but one as deformed and horrible as myself would not deny herself to me. My companion must be of the same species and have the same defects. This being you must create."

"You can blast my other passions, but revenge remains - revenge, henceforth dearer than light of food! I may die, but first you, my tyrant and tormentor, shall curse the sun that gazes on your misery."

"If for one instant I had thought what might be the hellish intention of my fiendish adversary, I would rather have banished myself forever from my native country and wandered a friendless outcast over the earth than have consented to this miserable marriage. But, as if possessed by magic powers, the monster blinded me to his real intentions; and when I thought that I had prepared only my own death, I hastened that of a far dearer victim."

"I was tempted to plunge into the silent lake, that the waters might close over me and my calamities forever"

"When I thought of him I gnashed my teeth, my eyes became inflamed, and I ardently wished to extinguish that life which I had so thoughtlessly bestowed."

"I, not in deed, but in effect, was the true murderer."

"The immense mountains and precipices that overhung me on every side - the sound of the river raging among the rocks, and the dashing of the waterfalls around, spoke of a power mighty as Omnipotence - and I ceased to fear, or to bend before any being less almighty than that which had created and ruled the elements, here displayed in their most terrific guise."

"These sublime and magnificent scene afforded me the greatest consolation that I was capable of receiving."

"'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.'"

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