There is something at work in my soul which I do not understand. I am practically industrious - painstaking, a workman to execute with perseverance and labour - but besides this there is a love for the marvellous, a belief in the marvellous, intertwined in all my projects, which hurries me out of the common pathways of men, even to the wild sea and unvisited regions I am about to explore.
Mary Wollstonecraft ShelleySatan has his companions, fellow-devils, to admire and encourage him; but I am solitary and detested.
Mary Wollstonecraft ShelleyI cherished hope, it is true, but it vanished when my person reflected . . .
Mary Wollstonecraft ShelleyBut soon, I shall die, and what I now feel be no longer felt. Soon these burning miseries will be extinct.
Mary Wollstonecraft ShelleyI saw -- with shut eyes, but acute mental vision -- I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together. I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, and then, on the working of some powerful engine, show signs of life, and stir with an uneasy, half-vital motion.
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley